Suddenly Alone
A Practical Guide to Prepare Yourself and Your Loved Ones for When You Are Suddenly Alone
by
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DEVELOPING A PERSONAL OPERATING MANUAL
1. A PLAN IS KEY:
It has often been said, that if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. To ensure a successful lifestyle, it helps to have a roadmap: A plan that articulates who and what you are and what you want done with your "stuff". At a minimum, it helps to record what "stuff" you have and where it is located.
There are many benefits to having your own written plan:
BENEFITS:
A written plan is informative and contains most of your important information in one place (your Suddenly Alone notebook). You, certainly, will realize a large amount of peace of mind, as will those close to you, your spouse, and your heirs. It prepares yourself and your family for the inevitable, and provides your spouse and heirs with a roadmap to all that is necessary for them to continue living effectively, without being "lost" in your absence. In addition, as we age, we need tools that supplement our abilities and enable us to lead a healthy lifestyle.
The Estate Planning section of your plan enables you to get your own financial affairs identified and in order. It establishes a complete reference and plan that is your specific choice for the ultimate distribution of your assets.
And, finally, it communicates your specific last wishes, eliminating any doubt by your loved ones as to what those wishes might have been, at a time when doubt is least appreciated by them. You have provided the answers to their concerns in advance.
2. FORMAT:
a. THIS MANUAL CONTAINS TEMPLATES THAT WILL BECOME SPECIFIC TO YOU.
We have provided you with (many) pre-formatted templates which will enable you to be organized and clear.
b. THIS MANUAL UTILIZES THE "MAGIC OF A #2 PENCIL AND PIECES OF PAPER" (Portability and ease of completion).
Many years ago when I was attempting to convince the computer executives of my Wall Street customer of the benefits of a back-up data center, their Director of Engineering queried: "What good does all your additional computer stuff do if my staff develops Legionnaire's Disease?"! The value of a manual notebook would enable that employer to open for business in the morning, record its transactions and close at the end of the business day, preserving the important data for further processing once his organization was again fully functional.
Like that Director of Engineering, you will utilize paper and pencil to record, in one convenient and portable notebook, everything that is essential to administer your affairs, via the templates we have developed for that purpose. It is our intent to provide, in the near future, an electronic set of templates that can be completed and maintained online by you and from which multiple copies might be made for your relatives and friends. For now, however, paper and pencil are the tools we will use!
To get one free set of templates which you can print out and copy, email us at suddenlyalone3@gmail.com. Limit one set per book owner. Yes, there are many templates to be completed. Maybe, not all of them will pertain to you. Simply utilize those that do and ignore the rest. The secret is to take your time, working with one template at a time, as there are often decisions and data gathering required on your part to successfully complete each template.
The "good news" is that we have designed these templates with a "learning curve of 1" (easy to use the first time your try!). In the design of my employer's first automatic teller machines (ATM's) our product design engineers had a special Human Factors laboratory to ensure that our ATM's could be successfully used by anyone the first time they tried. Your authors are now "senior citizens" and appreciate "simple" and "easy to use". We have designed these templates to be easy to use by you.
We have collected full size templates together in the last section of this book. You can utilize these full size templates to make additional copies for your family and heirs. Be sure to keep one set of "blank" templates to use as "a Master set", should you want to revise templates after initially completing them.
3. THE PROCESS:
Complete each template with the information requested. Pay attention to instructions particular to each template.
Keep copies (not the originals) of specific documents in this book, along with their relevant templates. Be sure to record the safe location of each original document noted on each template (We use 3-hole sheet protectors to hold these copies in our notebook).
Complete only those templates that relate to you. Not everyone will need all the templates that are included in this book.
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About the Book
If you were suddenly alone, could you wake up in the morning, operate effectively throughout the day as you performed the activities of daily living, retire self-assured at night, and repeat that process in the weeks, months, and years to come?
Could you today, without help from anyone, put your hands on all your financial records, legal documents, personal identification cards, insurance policies, medical records, prescriptions, computer logins and passwords?
Have you thought about what you will do or where you will live if you become incapacitated? Have you told anyone your wishes upon death? Are you doing everything you can to take care of yourself and live a healthy lifestyle?
If you answered yes to all of the above questions, congratulations. If you answered no to any or all of the above questions, why?
You do not have all the information needed at your fingertips. You do not know what you do not know. Someone else has managed all or most of your affairs for you until now, and now you are all alone. Have you thought about how a comprehensive "personal operating manual" could enable you to answer the above questions yes?
This book will help you develop such a manual.
About the Author
Ken and Donna Wright compile in one easy-to-read volume a wealth of valuable, practical information to get your personal affairs in order. This is a book version of a seminar that Ken and Donna developed and taught many times to appreciative audiences over the past three years. They provide templates to be completed and optionally placed in acetates along with copies of important documents in a three-ring notebook. The notebook you create will serve as a reference document for you and your family members.
Ken and Donna observed couples who functioned well as a team and complemented each other's skills, becoming devastated by the death of one of them. Aging and death are difficult to talk about, yet these inevitable life phases need to be planned for. As couples age, strengths of one partner can compensate for declining abilities of the other. Yet when all the tasks unexpectedly fall upon one person, it can be overwhelming.
The authors describe the necessary legal documents needed to protect your assets and specify your health directives. They describe choices to be made about handling your arrangements upon death. They provide templates where you can document your personal contact information, your daily activities, and the procedures to run your household. There are suggestions to make your home safe and your life healthy and fulfilling. When you can no longer live independently, alternatives are presented and steps are outlined to ease the transition.