Putting your digital life in order

How to include online services, important documents and digital family mementos in your estate plan

Your digital life may seem difficult to organize. Locked behind disparate accounts, spread across devices and out of mind because they are out of sight, it may seem challenging to wrangle all your digital belongings. And unlike tangible items like heirloom jewelry or vacation homes, or intangible but well-established considerations like financial securities and accounts, aspects of your digital life aren’t always top-of-mind when building and maintaining an estate plan.

But neglecting these things may create difficulty for your family members later on, and could lead to the loss of items with incredible value – both sentimental and monetary.

As the number and types of digital property are continually growing and are locked within a hodgepodge of accounts and subscriptions, getting a handle on your digital estate can be tricky. A diligent, steady approach to keeping inventory of your digital life can help bring order to this process.

What is part of your digital life?

Their scope and nature continues to evolve, but common examples include financial accounts, service accounts, legal and financial documents, cloud storage, health records and media collections (movies, e-books and the like). Email and social media accounts would also fall under this umbrella.

Priceless family photos or videos that would have previously lived in physical albums or tapes may now live on your phone or other devices. These, also, are considered digital property. In addition to memories you’ve captured are things you’ve created: intellectual property like designs, literary materials, blogs, websites and program code for which you own the copyright.

It’s helpful to take a gradual approach to thinking through your digital life, rather than trying to compile one big list from the get-go. If you start now, a little at a time, you can account for it in your planning in a comprehensive, thoughtful way.

Consolidated storage

For digital property not tied to specific service accounts, including photos, videos and PDFs of health records and legal paperwork, you may consider setting up a cloud-based backup system to consolidate devices, accounts and services. A financial advisor, estate planning attorney or trusted family member can help you access these tools so you can organize them while maintaining gated access and rigorous cybersecurity.

For online accounts, it’s a good idea to change passwords regularly for security reasons. A secure password manager can make it easier to manage strong, complex passwords while providing a simpler way for loved ones to access the accounts if needed.

Organizing now for less stress later

There can be other benefits to organizing your digital life. Inventorying your digital belongings and accounts can also help you eliminate subscription charges from services you no longer use. It can also help to simplify access to important accounts in the case of an emergency. That way if, for example, you became incapacitated your loved ones could access things medical clinic portals or utility bills on your behalf.

Creating an estate plan is an act of love. By making your intentions clear with a holistic, comprehensive plan, you help reduce additional stress and friction for your loved ones. While the idea of a digital life may feel new or complex, accounting for these items in an estate plan follows the same foundational principles as with any other asset.

And with all planning practices, it’s better to have a plan too early than to need one suddenly. Your professional team can assist in accounting for your digital life in your long-term plan.