Anna Calderwick

A series by Anna Calderwick

Family Transition Guides

Practical guidance for the responsibilities nobody teaches you how to manage.

Purpose

Practical systems for managing complex family responsibilities and life transitions.

A Family Transition Guide does not make difficult decisions for you. It gives you a clearer system for making, organizing and acting on them.

More clarity.Fewer loose ends.A manageable next step.

Principles

Every guide in the series is

  1. Clear

    The order of the work, and whose decision is whose, are made visible before anything is asked of you.

  2. Practical

    Every page helps you decide, assign, record, track, prepare or close something.

  3. Respectful

    The person at the center of the transition stays at the center of the plan.

  4. Complete

    The work is carried through past the obvious milestone, until the loose ends are closed.

  5. Bounded

    The guides organize decisions and information. They do not replace medical, legal, financial or other professional advice.

What a guide is written for

A guide in this series is written when:

  • a real transition is under way;
  • someone has responsibility to organize, decide, coordinate, record or carry out the work;
  • the work follows a sequence;
  • several people, services, documents, deadlines or systems are involved;
  • the work can reach a concrete outcome.

Markers used in the guides

A few short labels recur through every guide, so that a page shows at a glance what it is for.

DECIDE
Making a choice
OWNER
Assigning work to a named person
ASK
Questions to put to a professional
RECORD
Keeping a record
NEXT
What follows
CHECK
Confirming that something is ready

In the series