A contacts list that stays correct

Keep a short contacts list for when calls have to be made. Ten names is a ceiling, not a duty to fill up to ten. On the list there is room for the partner, the children, the GP, the employer if there is one, and a close friend. For each name a telephone number that works now and one word for the role. The list is for calling, not for describing the family. This piece is about keeping it current: what you check every year and what you leave out. It does not merely repeat why a call list is useful. Put the date of the last check above the names. Without that date a reader does not know whether the number is from this year or from a previous home.

Once a year you read every line. A GP who has stopped, an employer that is no longer correct, a friend who has a different number: you change that in the list itself. A loose note in a drawer does not turn up on the day someone is looking. Remove a name that no longer needs to be called. Do not leave an old role standing because it feels uncomfortable to strike it out. Ten names that are half right are worth less than six names that are right. Children who do not live in the house belong on this list if you want them to be called. Who your children are, you keep complete alongside this, even if not everyone is on this short call list. A name to call is not a ranking.

What you leave out is gossip, a judgement and an old quarrel. No sentence about who is difficult, who is always late or whom you would rather not see. Those sentences do not help the caller and they hurt if the wrong person reads along. The trusted person and other invited readers see what you share. Write only the role that is needed for calling. No passwords, no DigiD, no medical particulars that belong with the GP. The GP is there as a contact, not as a file on your health. An employer gets a name and a number of the department you want told that you are not there. That line needs nothing more.

A life file is a note for later. It is not a will, not a medical instruction and not advice. The contacts list says who can be called. It does not make a person who is called into an heir or an executor. That appointment belongs in a notarial will. A codicil has its own, strictly handwritten form and a telephone list is not that form. Ervazo stores the names and does not send them to a doctor or a notary. Keep the list short, with a date, and without stories. A name that is no longer correct comes off. Then the list remains an aid and not a portrait of the family.