Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,68

actions should be taken, such as when a garage sale or estate sale should be held, and when the house will be put on the market.

Your group may not be able to create a firm timeline for all these targets immediately. But as plans come together, share the details with everyone who needs to know.

4. Assign jobs. Downsizing involves a lot of skill sets. You have logistics to plan, packing supplies to buy, numbers to add up, calls to make, bills to pay, and forms to sign. One or more strong backs are also very helpful, if not mandatory.

Figure out who is going to help and what they’ll be doing. I think it’s reasonable to expect assistance from anyone who’s going to be keeping items or benefiting from this downsizing. If any participating family members are out of state, try to find a way for them to pitch in their fair share, whether they come in for a long weekend visit to help in person, make phone calls to line up professionals, or manage logistics from afar. It’s also reasonable for people to help out according to their skills and interests.

Also, if a sibling is an executor or trustee, you may want to take these responsibilities into account when dividing tasks fairly.

Keep in mind that families often distribute downsizing chores along gender lines. If women want to clean the kitchen and organize family photos and men want to carry boxes, that’s fine. But discuss it first and don’t presume that women and men will naturally volunteer for certain jobs. (See here.)

5. Expect transparency. You’re going to need a lot of honesty from your fellow participants. This means that everyone must talk openly about what they want.

Everyone involved will bring all sorts of strongly held values to the table. These values will influence which of the home’s possessions they want to keep, throw away, or sell.

For example, your parents’ possessions will represent different possibilities for family members. Some may want to preserve their history, some may want to bring home free household goods, and others may see a chance to sell items to improve their finances. All of these motivations, within reason, may be appropriate desires. Sometimes participants’ values will clash. Sometimes your family members may not be able to describe their values because they’re so deeply buried.

So try to draw them out. If people feel strongly about a particular decision that’s contributing to a conflict, encourage them to explain why. Even if their stance is unpopular or divisive at first, the rest of the group may feel differently if they hear the explanation.

Transparency also means that participants can’t hide their actions from the others. Nor can they say one thing and do something else. Ideally, each person will alert the others before doing anything major (like taking an item that everyone wants, hiring outside help such as an estate sale company, or making important decisions).

That said, it’s okay to take some actions and make minor decisions without distracting everyone with calls and e-mails. But as much as possible, each participant needs to work with openness and honesty.

6. Communicate! This goes hand-in-hand with transparency. Communicate early and often. Participants cannot make decisions for someone else without discussing them first, just because they’re “certain” they know what this person would want.

So be sure you have contact information (including cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses) for everyone involved.

If a lot of people are participating in the process, especially if you’re separated by distance, you may want to set up an online meeting place to leave notes and update a calendar. You can find family organizer apps, and Google Drive allows multiple people to access shared documents.

7. Hold regular meetings. After your first meeting, bring your decision makers together to exchange ideas and conduct the downsizing process, as needed. How many meetings you’ll need depends on the size of your family, the amount of property you’ll be going through, how well the participants get along, and where you’re spread out geographically. If it’s just you and one sibling who lives nearby, the first planning meeting may suffice.

Each meeting needs to have goals, and it needs to lead to action steps for members to follow afterward. Hold everyone responsible for sticking to the meeting’s agenda. If one of the downsizing disrupters from Chapter 5 wants to hijack the meeting (likely the Control Freak, the Provocateur, or the Attention Seeker), politely tell this person that you want to hear what he or she has to say,