Introduction
A Sorted Life Folder is one place, be it physical or digital, where the important stuff lives: documents, accounts, passwords, wishes. Not because something’s about to go wrong, but because when it eventually does, nobody should have to go treasure-hunting through drawers and inboxes during the hardest week of their life. Keep it simple, make it obvious and make it known where it’s kept. This page walks through what to include and how to keep it simple.
Document Categories
You can build the folder your way or use The SortedLife Folder template – [Coming Soon] – however you want to shape your folder the key contents should be categorised in a structure like this:-
Personal documents Birth certificate, marriage/civil partnership certificate, passport, National Insurance number.
Financial List of bank and building society accounts (not the passwords just which ones exist), pensions, investments, ISAs, outstanding loans, insurance policies.
Legal Will (and where the original is kept), Lasting Power of Attorney if in place, property deeds or mortgage details.
Digital legacy A note of which online accounts exist. Specifically these should include email, social media, subscriptions but they should be kept separately from actual login details.
Wishes Funeral preferences, who to notify, any pets and who’d care for them.
What to do about passwords
We’re all told about Cybersecurity and Online safety. For some it’s easy and for others the internet has become a maze of warnings and red flags. The key message is never store passwords in plain text inside your Life Folder itself because if it’s ever lost, copied, or seen by the wrong person, everything is exposed at once. The safer approach: use a password manager, and store only the master password (or instructions for a trusted person to access it) somewhere separate and secure. Options exist from a sealed envelope with a solicitor, or told verbally to one trusted person. The Life Folder should say a password manager exists and who can access it but not what the passwords are.
Checklists Placeholder
You will will have sorted your Life Folder when you have:-
- One folder created (physical or digital)
- At least one trusted person knows it exists and roughly where
- Reviewed at least once a year
- Passwords stored securely and separately from the folder
Other Resources
Useful resources available on SortedLife Guide