Digital Assets section is on pages 30 through 34 in The International Resident’s Ending Note.
Do you work from home? Do you listen to Spotify or Apple Music? Do you have online banking? Spend time scrolling social media on your phone? Play Wordle? Use ChatGPT? Are you a content creator? Do you have an online side hustle?
These activities are all tied to the digital assets of your life. No matter your age or socioeconomic status, you probably have digital assets.
And at some point, you will need to let someone know about your online life, how to access your accounts, and what to do with them after you’re gone. So let’s talk about how to make this easier for everyone – including you, right now, while you’re here to use your own accounts.
Unlocking your Phone
The Digital Assets section starts with Hardware – your phone, your computer, your tablet. They will change over time, sure. But write down what you own now.
The most important thing here? Your unlock codes. If your family can’t get into your devices, they can’t access anything else.
In movies and on TV, we see characters swiping phones with fingers or holding them in front of faces for biometric locks, but it’s not likely to happen (or work) in real life. You need to share your numerical unlock codes.
If you filled in the Emergency Access Guide on page 7, then you wrote your unlock codes for your emergency contacts. So in this section you can just say who has the codes. Or you could share the codes again here if that seems more useful.
After the unlock codes, the Password Manager is essential for access to your accounts.
Instead of writing down every single password for every single account – which would take forever and go out of date almost immediately – use a password manager like Bitwarden or 1Password. I shared a long article about this here: (Un)Locking your World with a Password Manager
On page 31 you’ll let people know which password manager you use, where its installed, and how to access the master password. Don’t write the master password or passphrase here.
Online Presence
Pages 32-34 allow you to list your social media accounts, email addresses, cloud storage, and streaming services to make it easier to see your online life at a glance.
You can simply tick the boxes. The blank lines let you note multiple accounts or usernames. And since there are way more services than the ones I’ve listed, fill in the other ones you use.
If you have a side hustle or are a sole proprietor there’s a section for noting the tools and services you use for that, too.
In my own digital life, there is overlap with which things are personal vs business and which are of vital importance vs less important. You can find your own way to note the key things in the Ending Note or in your password manager.
These lists go hand-in-hand with your password manager and also the section for General Instructions for Digital Legacy on page 31.
What do you want your heirs to do with your accounts: Do you want your photos preserved? Your blog archived? Your online presence scrubbed? Write it down. Otherwise someone else will be guessing.
For social media platforms, there are legacy and memorialisation options. Each of them is different, but you can set them up in advance by designating legacy contacts or it can be handled after you’re gone by providing death certificates.
Related Section: Recurring Payments
Many digital assets are SAAS subscription based and paid automatically. There’s a whole section in the Ending Note for recurring payments. When you get to it on page 54, you can return to Digital Assets as a reference.
The Digital Assets section provides an overview of your online life. Filling in pages 30 – 34 shouldn’t take more than an hour.
But if you have more time, consider using this as an opportunity to clean up unused accounts and update your password manager.
Your future self with thank you and your family won’t be playing treasure hunt when they’re dealing with everything else.
You’ve got this. Take care.