If I Can't Speak
Guide

Where your papers live: the document index

Start with the free test

Twelve plain questions, a verdict in hours, and every gap named. Free — and nothing you answer leaves your browser.

Take the free 48-Hour Test

In a crisis, nobody needs your documents. They need to find your documents — and those are different problems with different solutions. Copying and scanning everything is a month of work that rots. An index is an afternoon of work that stays true: three columns — what, where, who else has it.

What belongs on the index

The three-column rule

For each item, write: what it is, where the original is (room, container, color of folder — "blue folder, desk drawer" beats "study"), and who holds a copy, if anyone. Vague locations fail at 2 a.m.; ridiculous specificity succeeds. "The grey box on the closet shelf, behind the coats" has saved more families more hours than any app.

Keep it boring, keep it current

The index lives at the front of your organizer, dated. Once a year, walk it with fresh eyes — it's also the fastest way to notice what you've lost, let lapse, or never actually signed. And keep the index itself where your person can find it: an index of locations is itself a location problem, which is why it rides with your fridge sheet's pointer line.

The Organizer Kit opens its Money Map and document sections with exactly this index, as a fill-in table. See what's in the kit — or start with the 48-Hour Test.