Why Everyone Needs a ‘Digital Death-Cleaning’ Plan

I come from a long line of packrats. When I went through my grandmother’s home after she died in 1986, I found some priceless mementos she had stashed away. But I also found that if you insist on keeping every one of those lovely shopping bags you got from Bloomingdale’s, you reach the end of your life with a closet that is nothing but shopping bags.

Packrats like us are the fodder for “Swedish death cleaning,” a decluttering trend based on the idea of thinning your material possessions in life, so you don’t burden your survivors in death. But many people now burden their survivors with nonmaterial possessions, too, in the form of countless digital files and online accounts. (Especially those who believe in archiving every email and file.) 

That’s why you need a “digital death cleaning” plan—one that gives you the full benefits of retaining your digital history while you’re alive but thinks ahead to what your children are going to do with all that when you’re gone.   

Here’s one packrat’s guide to how to proceed:

Label your files

Pick a system for labeling your files so that your survivors know what to look at and what can be ignored. A simple approach is to label them either “relevant,” “memorabilia” or “DoD” (delete upon death). 

Relevant includes anything of practical use to your family or anyone else. That includes important legal and financial information like your will and the passwords for your accounts. Also any information you’ve accumulated that would help someone deal with your physical possessions, like the instructions on how to clean the air conditioner. 

Documents and emails you would most like to leave for friends or people in your field or community also fall into the “relevant” category. Things like the memos you wrote while developing a fabulously successful marketing campaign, your record of birds seen at your local sanctuary, or notes on your patch in the community garden that would interest whoever takes it over. While you’re at it, think of any organizations you can bequeath these files to in your will, to be sure they see them. Or share them with them now

Memorabilia is stuff like family photos, say, or any work or personal documents you think your children or grandchildren would enjoy reading in 30 years. My bar for what to include was set by an essay my great-aunt wrote in 1953, surveying her former classmates for the 25^th reunion of Barnard’s class of 1928. Her summary of her classmates’ dislikes (“Senator McCarthy, idle women, narrow-mouthed ketchup bottles, dirty clothes, big parties, dogs in the house, and television”) is just one of its treasures.

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