Get organized for the future and ease your mind so you can enjoy your later years.
Offering products and services to simplify your life
We will consolidate your important information, figure out what to do with all of your possessions, create a plan for the very end, review what your life has meant so far and help you convey those lessons and values to your loved ones. Then you won’t have to worry about it, and you can get on with enjoying your life!
Here are some ways we can help you:
Later Life Organizing Notebook – consolidation of all relevant materials pertaining to medical, financial, legal, insurance, digital accounts & household information. This includes suggestions for documentation you may need and resources for how to obtain them. The level of detail will be negotiated with each individual client as some may not choose to share and consolidate account information and passwords, etc., though others may prefer this.
Full Possession Audit – an accounting of all possessions and their intended disposition (in addition to items assigned in the will, what should be done with your family photo albums, baby teeth, sock drawer, Facebook account, that lamp, tool bench, car, pets, books, plates, silverware) and referrals to organizing companies, junk removal companies, tax-credit donation organizations and estate sales companies.
Life Review Project - Let’s document your journey so far. Do you have stories to tell? Wisdom to disperse? There are many ways to do this, including a My Life Story notebook, My Modern Tribute where you work with professional writers, a subscription to Storyworth where you will receive regular questions to consider in email form, a recorded voice or video interview, a narrative book with photos, and more.
Legacy Projects - What do you want to leave behind? With options ranging from letters to family and friends, donation of a park bench, consolidation of your recipes into a book, donation of acreage to National Trust, a digitized photo album and more – the possibilities are endless.
Coping Skills for dealing with difficult emotions. As a long-time facilitator of Compassionate Integrity Training and a trained End-of-Life Doula, I am well equipped to handle the uncomfortable emotions that may arise during this process, and I have skills and practices designed to work through these specific issues.
Vigil Plan - Let’s document your ideal setting for your final days and hours so that these preferences can be implemented, as much as possible. We can also cite who should be notified that the time is near, and who should be notified afterward, and the best way to contact these people.
Funeral Plan - We can organize your Celebration of Life from cremation, burial, casket, plot, service, transportation, pre-payment, obituary writing, eulogy, music choices & performers, speakers, decorations, repass and more. We will also include documentation of where the obituary should be posted; ie., newspaper, Facebook, etc., and if announcements should be made at a church, club, etc.
Medical Decision Tree - We can sketch out various possible scenarios based on current diagnoses and make suggestions and referrals for highly regarded organizations. We will also research the payment options for these needs (ie., in-home health care, assisted living, skilled nursing care, etc.) and what is covered under your policies and healthcare program, and what would be paid out of pocket.
About Me
Why I Founded North Star Later Life Organizing:
Working with hospice patients as an End-of-Life Doula, I have come to see how few people have prepared for the end, and how much additional pain and heartache it causes the survivors dealing with things that could’ve been done before, when they weren’t in such an emotionally vulnerable state.
Having worked for years with many Buddhist practitioners in an organization called Compassionate Integrity Training, I became closely aligned with the Buddhist mission of alleviating suffering. I see so much unnecessary suffering by family and friends when a loved one is at the end of their life, I felt moved to do what I could to change that.
I began my career in the financial industry, where my job was to take a tremendous amount of information and consolidate it into simple spreadsheets with a written description. It is very easy these days to let the amount of information we must all keep at hand to overwhelm us, and I know how much better I feel when my information is organized. I wanted to apply these skills to help alleviate suffering, and so I founded North Star Later Life Organizing.
How I Can Help You
My vision is to normalize the idea that everyone has all of their essential information organized and readily available for their loved-ones to access as the end draws near, making it easy to communicate with medical personnel; legal and financial issues have been addressed and sorted out; digital accounts are accounted for and easy to shut down; personal possessions have been winnowed away to just the barest essentials; and the Celebration of Life is all organized and paid for. This leaves the grieving survivors time and space to grieve.
As for the client themselves, doing our Life Review process and creating a Legacy project will help them define the meaning in their life and leave behind something wonderful.