went through the same thing with my parents' estate. My dad left 11 large – – I mean large – – filing cabinets filled with papers. Almost everything was in a folder of some sort, but the labeling was random. If you wanted to look up information about their vehicle, you might find a folder in one drawer labeled Dodge, a folder in another drawer labeled car, a folder in another drawer labeled auto…. Somewhere I have photos of some of the entertaining tabs on folders that had three or four words strung together that made no sense to me whatsoever. He did not have dementia. He was just the sort who did organization chaotically.
I look with despair at my own home and I vow that I'm not going to do the same thing to my heirs, and yet, it takes work to get back through all the stuff I've accrued since I moved three years ago. Any day now I'm sure I will get to it.🙄❤️.
something I started doing several years ago as I began the effort of going through my file cabinets (I have only two large ones, not 11) to separate the wheat from the chaff, was to leave a large note at the front of each file folder saying something like, "Heirs: the things in this folder mean nothing to anyone but me. Recycle all of this." Or, "Heirs: the stuff in this folder might be of interest too [some specific name]. If it isn't, please toss it". Or even "Heirs: if you want, check with the Cupertino historical Society to see whether they want the things in this folder. If not, recycle them."
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