When you are at home, you or family members are living or working abroad, or you move home, you need to keep track of vital documents. Passports. Visas. Birth certificates. University degree certificates. House Deeds. Rental contracts and agreements.
Double Filing Letters
How can you misplace a letter? It shouldn't happen. When I worked for the British Council we had a double filing system. One copy of any outgoing letter went on the top of today's file and was a chronological record. The second copy went on top of a thematic file, which was in alphabetical order with the others. Inside that, letters chronological.
You should do the same with incoming mail and sign and date each time you removed a file or read a letter.
This requires space. You can save space, paper, and ink, by keeping documents online.
Online Documents
What about keeping track of online documents? A place for everything. Everything in its place. A or index of list of places. Accessible in future. Duplicated for disaster. Keep them on a separate device or place. Then, if your laptop is lost, stolen, mislaid, replaced, you still have your old documents.
You can send them by email to yourself. To other family members.
Insurance Documents - Accessible
Print out insurance and leave it a pin board or magnetic door or side of the fridge or other meal cabinet. If you are in an accident, you need to have somebody at your home or office who has quick, instant access to the phone number to get help for your broken down vehicle or injured or trapped person.
Insurance documents about a house fire or flood need to be in a fireproof safe. And/or a duplicate copy with the phone number of the insurance company and the policy number and expiry date should be with a family member, business colleague or friend who is not in the same house and not in the same flood or fire zone.
Calendars - Visible and Invisible
A one year wall calendar can keep track of holiday dates for a family or company, plus birthdays, anniversaries, national holidays. A pin board or kitchen place such as the fridge door can keep track of appointments. Make sure it is not visible to outsiders, potential burglars or thieves, or people who might carelessly chat about your away dates in the pub, cleaners, delivery people, house sitters, dog walkers, or passers-by.
For babysitters, and a new home, the first thing to do is note the numbers of the property management, owner or rental agent, and the services, gas or electricity, etc, on the notice board for quick reference, or in a highly coloured box file, or a starred file on your laptop with the document name in capital letters or bold or underlined or starred or in a file called VITAL DOCUMENTS,ADDRESSES, EMAILS & PHONE NUMBERS.
I have had a series of mishaps in my life and have learned from them.
1 Lost Degree Document
To take up a teaching job teaching English as a Foreign language in Singapore, I needed the original, not a photocopy, because that could be altered.
I phoned home from Singapore to our son at our home in London, England. I told him,
'I urgently need my university graduation certificate. We can't find it in our vital document file in Singapore. I think I left it in London. Can you find it?'
He said, 'You have loads of files. Where shall I start?'
'I usually frame important documents. Look on the walls.'
'You have abut a hundred framed pictures.'
'Look.' ...
'I've looked. I can't find it.'
'Some of the pictures obscure the one underneath.'
'I've found it. Behind another certificate.'
2 Worst Losses - Passports
a) Passport left inside the big suitcase from my last big trip. I thought that would ensure I did not travel without it. But I did not note where it was. Six months later I looked in bedside drawers for a short trip and in my small wheel on bag for a free trip to France. I discovered it only six months later.
b) Passport in neck pouch left hanging on the back of the chair at breakfast. The chair had two upright posts. I should have kept the passport with my coat in a large pocket with the strip hanging out visibly.
Rescue Successes
I was so busy making sandwiches for the journey that I rushed off without my passport. Twice. On the first occasion a family member found it and drove after us. We turned back and met him half way back, saving us time.
The same thing happened again. I was too embarrassed to tell the organizers I had no passport. Another person, my editor, told them and came back with good news. This time I was able to buy a day visa, for a day trip on a ferry allowing just a few hours in France, by taking a photo in a photo booth for a couple of pounds, getting a witness that it was my likeness - that would have been easy?, and paying a few pounds or Euros for the document.
The moral is:
1 Have a checklist.
2 Have documents checked in advance of the time needed to get visas and new passports or more insurance.
3 Note where you have stored passports and certificates, or always have them clearly visible in the same place - but not where they could be stolen, copied or revealed by strangers.
4 Leave a copy of vital documents with somebody trusted at another address.
May all your travels and documents be safe and stress-free.
-ends-
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