5 Things To Do AFTER I Die

I know I’ll be too busy being dead to care, but there are a number of little things I’d like to “clean up” when I die. For two reasons – one is to give people you leave behind as little hassle as possible. Just decent I guess. The second is a bit of ego boosting – to gain some kind of immortality so to speak :) So here are the things I should plan for when I die.

1. Transfer all my passwords

I currently have 324 accounts with various sites. No two passwords are the same and none of them are “dictionary” words either. Those I leave behind need to have access to important accounts like banks, investment portals and sites to pay the household bills.

The simple solution I’m using is Lastpass.com. It’s the best free password management solution hands down and I highly recommend it. The security is absolute and no one – not even Lastpass themselves have access to your passwords. Sensitive data is encrypted using your master key which is the only item you need to remember.

I’ll give my master password to the person I designate. I’ll either tell it to them during my life or leave it in my will as a sealed document with my attorney. So I’ve got this little problem throttled.

2. Tell everyone I’m dead

As a courtesy, I just want all my contacts to know I’ve gone to a place with free Internet, Pepsi which doesn’t spoil your teeth, and meat products which haven’t been extracted from screaming tortured animals.

This is pretty simple too. Compose the message you’d like to send everyone and save it in your “drafts” folder of your webmail. Then tell the person you’ve selected in Step one to log into your webmail, and hit the “Send” button. Your last words will reflect your personality. So make it interesting!

Second problem solved.

3. Keep my blog up

In many ways, my blog will be the most lasting effect on this world. The rest of my life is unremarkable. I want my large collection of thoughts and stories to stay online for as long as the Internet exists. Those of you with free blogs on WordPress or Blogspot have nothing to worry about. Poor sods like me with a hosted domain need to do some extra work. I’d move to a free account eve  now, but I’m a writer and my domain helps with brand recognition and my online reputation :(

One solution is to wait till I retire and then move to a free hosted blog site. Blogspot would be my choice as of now since WordPress.com doesn’t allow javascript and has a bunch of other restrictions. It’s a tedious process involving the redirecting of links via a 301 permanent redirect to pass on PageRank juice. I also need to inform those linking to my blog to change their URL’s. I’ll need to update my Feedburner settings as well.

But what if I die suddenly tomorrow? Alas, the procedure is more clumsy then. I’ve told the person in step 1 to just create a new account for me on Blogspot or wordpress and simply export all my posts. I can’t ask them to do more than that since they’re presumably be too busy dealing with all the other crap that happens after a person near them dies.

4. Write a Final Blog Post

I gotta keep this one in my “drafts” section and tell the aforementioned chosen one to publish it. My final message to the world at large where Step 2 is only for those who know your personally. This will be your epitaph.

5. Put up a QR code on my tombstone

You’ll probably have seen a QR code somewhere or the other. It’s like a barcode with encoded information on it. Just point your smartphone camera at it and it should extract all the important info. So anyone passing by who cares to know more can simply scan it and know when I lived, died, my name, my blog address and any other info I want to leave for posterity. It seems this has already been done before.

And that wraps up my list of to-do things after my death :D