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COMPUTER TIP OF THE WEEK for all Windows users: download the latest FREE version of Treesize! I had some older versions of this that were just okay, but Ver 4.2 is amazing! This little utility fills a huge usability hole in Windows by scanning any portion of your file tree, reporting the sizes of every subfolder, and neatly sorting them by size. Unlike the old version I was using, this one is lightning fast: scanned my entire C drive in seconds!
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tldr; I managed to spend almost a week Getting (some of) My Affairs In Order. The fireproof lockbox now has a justification for existing.
Two or three or five days ago I was inspired by The Internet to add a few things to the fireproof lockbox in the office closet. All that was in there was a folder with passports, birth certificates, and the like and one folder containing the giant abstract for the house. The Internet puff piece that crossed my digital desk suggested a few other obvious things to keep in there, like vehicle titles and emergency cash. Well, that sounds easy enough, right? Let's just add them.
But the most obvious thing to add was the Family Survivor Document and Password List that was started about 10 years ago and desperately needs updating. A lot of the updates are scrawled on the old hard copy in the pink binder, so they just needed to be transcribed. But the Password List had of course ballooned to the point where it needed its own document. So I figured I'd start with that. I do, of course, have all my passwords recorded in various places, so I started with that. Because my record-keeping impulses tend more towards intermittently obsessive that truly organized, I naturally discovered that the multiply redundant places I had recorded certain passwords did not agree with each other. So I had to login to all of them to see which version was correct. While I was at it, why not update some of the passwords on Loyalty accounts where I had carelessly reused the same password? That shoujld be easy, right? Which led to the unwelcome discovery that most of my credit cards and loyalty programs had changed their password requirements, in many cases forcing the use of email addresses as login names (which I HATE). So in order to change my password I had to abandon he handy "username" I had chosen and check/update my email contact info, which is surprisingly difficult to do on some of these awful websites. Alaska Airlines was excruciatingly difficult, eventually resulting in my disabling Richard's account completely. I still have to call Customer Service to get that fixed. *sigh* But I did get the passwords updated to something unique on the accounts that still work.
Then I moved on to the main Family Survivor Document, which actually took a lot less time than the passwords. Although I had a hard time finishing either one because just as I was about to print the hard copy I thought of something else I had forgotten to add.
Then I discovered that the giant abstract, although interesting as a historical document, does not include any actual DEEDS. I finally found a couple of extremely poor copies of our deed in a file folder marked "CLOSING DOCUMENTS" and just added that whole folder. Also, while I was at it, the Social Security and Medicare folders. And my latest insurance policies, which was one of the things I started out to do but had almost forgotten by this point.
Then it occurred to me that I might as well throw in some digital media with backups photos and important files. That led me down the path of doing a little bit of file cleanup and reorganization, and I'm still in the midst of that. And that's when I downloaded the new Treesize, which was the high point of this whole process so far.
``````````````
tldr; I managed to spend almost a week Getting (some of) My Affairs In Order. The fireproof lockbox now has a justification for existing.
Two or three or five days ago I was inspired by The Internet to add a few things to the fireproof lockbox in the office closet. All that was in there was a folder with passports, birth certificates, and the like and one folder containing the giant abstract for the house. The Internet puff piece that crossed my digital desk suggested a few other obvious things to keep in there, like vehicle titles and emergency cash. Well, that sounds easy enough, right? Let's just add them.
But the most obvious thing to add was the Family Survivor Document and Password List that was started about 10 years ago and desperately needs updating. A lot of the updates are scrawled on the old hard copy in the pink binder, so they just needed to be transcribed. But the Password List had of course ballooned to the point where it needed its own document. So I figured I'd start with that. I do, of course, have all my passwords recorded in various places, so I started with that. Because my record-keeping impulses tend more towards intermittently obsessive that truly organized, I naturally discovered that the multiply redundant places I had recorded certain passwords did not agree with each other. So I had to login to all of them to see which version was correct. While I was at it, why not update some of the passwords on Loyalty accounts where I had carelessly reused the same password? That shoujld be easy, right? Which led to the unwelcome discovery that most of my credit cards and loyalty programs had changed their password requirements, in many cases forcing the use of email addresses as login names (which I HATE). So in order to change my password I had to abandon he handy "username" I had chosen and check/update my email contact info, which is surprisingly difficult to do on some of these awful websites. Alaska Airlines was excruciatingly difficult, eventually resulting in my disabling Richard's account completely. I still have to call Customer Service to get that fixed. *sigh* But I did get the passwords updated to something unique on the accounts that still work.
Then I moved on to the main Family Survivor Document, which actually took a lot less time than the passwords. Although I had a hard time finishing either one because just as I was about to print the hard copy I thought of something else I had forgotten to add.
Then I discovered that the giant abstract, although interesting as a historical document, does not include any actual DEEDS. I finally found a couple of extremely poor copies of our deed in a file folder marked "CLOSING DOCUMENTS" and just added that whole folder. Also, while I was at it, the Social Security and Medicare folders. And my latest insurance policies, which was one of the things I started out to do but had almost forgotten by this point.
Then it occurred to me that I might as well throw in some digital media with backups photos and important files. That led me down the path of doing a little bit of file cleanup and reorganization, and I'm still in the midst of that. And that's when I downloaded the new Treesize, which was the high point of this whole process so far.
