✦Family · 12 recordsAfter a death: what to do

Almost none of this is urgent, but it arrives looking as though all of it is. This separates the few things that genuinely have deadlines from the long administrative tail, so that the tail can be done slowly, which is the only way it gets done at all.

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Free on any plan. You will see this list again in the app, and nothing is created until you press install.

✦ Everything it creates

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Goal

The necessary things done, at a survivable pace Month 6

A few real deadlines, and a long tail that can wait.

The first fortnight Week 3

The short list that genuinely has deadlines.

  • Register the death and get copies of the certificateDo firstDay 5
  • Arrange the funeralDo firstWeek 2
  • Tell employers, and anyone expecting them somewhereWeek 3

The paperwork, slowly Month 6

Months, and that is normal. No tight dates on purpose.

  • List everything that needs telling, and work down itWeek 6
  • Decide whether this needs a solicitorDo firstMonth 2
  • Deal with the estateMonth 6

Routines

  • An hour on the admin, then stopweekly
  • Talk to somebodyweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Almost none of it is urgent

Most of what arrives looks urgent and is not. Registering the death and the funeral have real deadlines. Nearly everything else can wait, and knowing that is worth more in the first fortnight than any list.\n\nThe second project has loose dates deliberately. A year of paperwork treated as a backlog becomes something to feel guilty about, and an hour a week is enough.

✦ Questions

After a death: what to do, answered.

Registering the death, and arranging the funeral. Almost everything else can wait, and knowing that is worth more in the first fortnight than any list — most of what arrives looking urgent is not.
Months, usually, and that is normal rather than a sign of doing it badly. It is a separate project here with no tight dates on it, because treating a year of paperwork as a backlog is how it becomes something to feel guilty about.
Not always. A straightforward estate can be handled without one, and a complicated one — property, a business, anything disputed — is usually cheaper with. The plan has a task for making that decision deliberately rather than by drift.
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