How it works

One key, three chapters, a note at a time.

What goes in each chapter, what the Sunday after looks like with it and without it, and how a note gets written.

An old cassette recorder on a kitchen table

Chapter one

Beforehand

Before they're born.

For the baby who isn't here yet and the grandparents who are.

Letters sealed until a date. First birthday. Eighteenth. The wedding.
Grandad's voice, recorded now, played later.
The name shortlist, and why yours won.
Where you came from, and how your parents met.
The plan, if something happens before you arrive.

A set of car keys in an old biscuit tin on top of a fridge

Chapter two

Meanwhile

While you're here.

The working file. For when the passport's missing or Mum's in hospital.

Passport, licence, Medicare, the will and who holds the original.
The money map. Where the super, the shares and the loans are. Not the money, the map.
The house manual. Wifi, alarm code, water mains, bins day, the plumber's number.
What's in the house, with photos and serial numbers, for the day the insurer asks.
The Fridge Card. A wallet card that opens your emergency page.

A bundle of envelopes tied with string and sealed with wax

Chapter three

Afterwards

When you've gone.

Your wishes and instructions, released to the right people at the right time.

Whereabouts. Who gets what, where it is and the story that goes with it.
The funeral. The music, who speaks, who definitely doesn't.
Letters on a schedule. On the day. First Christmas. Her twenty-first.
The Shutdown List. Subscriptions, accounts, the car, the browser history.
The Handover. A checklist for your executor, built from what you wrote.
Confessions. Yes, it was you who dented the car in 1998.

Picture it

The Sunday after.

Two versions of the same weekend. Only one of them needs you to have done anything.

An open biscuit tin full of old photographs

Before

The way it usually goes.

Your daughter is on the kitchen floor with the filing cabinet drawers out. Your son is in the shed holding a spanner, wondering if it's the good set. Someone is on hold to the bank. Nobody can find the will. The photos are in a tin and nobody knows who's who.

A set of chrome spanners laid out on a shed workbench beside an old red toolbox

After

The way it goes with Spare Key.

Your daughter opens one page and reads, in your voice, what to do first. Your son gets a note. Left bench, bottom drawer, the Sidchrome set. The will says which solicitor holds the original. Every face in the tin has a name, and you're the one who wrote it.

The bridge

An afternoon of writing now.

Spare Key is the bridge between the two. Start with one note. Add a chapter when you've got a spare hour. It's finished whenever you say it is and it's never too late to add a line.

Write your first note

Start here

The note your family will use most.

Whereabouts

Where it is, who it's for, why it matters.

A Whereabouts note is the smallest thing in Spare Key and the one your family will use most. Say what, where and why, in your own voice.

Feature
One sentence, one person, a photo of the thing and a photo of the spot. A voice memo too, if you'd rather say it.
Advantage
Locked and addressed. It opens for that person only, when you said. Grouped by room as well as by name, so the executor gets a walk through the house.
Benefit
Fewer questions and fewer guesses. The watch has a much better chance of reaching the grandson, and he'll know to wind it on Sundays.

An old wristwatch in its box in the top drawer of a desk — Top drawer of the desk, in the box it came in. Wind it on Sundays.

Daughter, Neil Armstrong's autograph is in the blue folder in the study safe. The certificate from the auction is behind it. Don't let your brother sell it.

To Daughter .. opens afterwards

Darl, the spare keys to the Kombi are in the biscuit tin above the fridge. Yes, that tin.

To Darl .. opens now

Grandson, the watch is in the top drawer of my desk, in the box it came in. It was your great-grandfather's. Wind it on Sundays.

To Grandson .. opens on his 21st