My Eulogy File
Leave them enough to get you right.
One day, somebody may have to write your eulogy.
You could leave them to reconstruct you from memory.
Or you could leave them some decent material to work with.
My Eulogy File is a downloadable guided workbook that helps you record the people, stories, details, memories, opinions, and instructions you’d like to leave behind.
Maybe you’ll use it to write your own eulogy.
Maybe you’ll leave everything for somebody else to write.
Either way, they’ll have something most people don’t:
your input.
This Isn’t a Funeral Planner
You won’t find pages for choosing coffins, recording account numbers, or deciding who gets the sideboard.
There are other places for that.
This is about one thing:
What would somebody need to know to talk about your life properly?
Not just what you did.
What you were like.
Not just the official milestones.
The people, stories, contradictions, ordinary details, difficult bits, and completely unnecessary opinions that made the life yours.
That’s what we’re collecting.
What’s Inside My Eulogy File?
The File takes you through ten chapters.
Chapter 1: Start Here
Work out what you want this File to become.
A finished eulogy, a draft, material for somebody else, or absolutely no idea yet.
All acceptable.
Chapter 2: The Outline of My Life
The basic shape.
Names, places, family, education, work, useful facts, and the different chapters of your life.
Not your autobiography.
Not your CV.
Just enough structure for everything else.
Chapter 3: My People
Who actually mattered.
Family, friends, partners, former partners, chosen family, people you’ve lost, people you’ve lost touch with, animals, and relationships that don’t fit neatly into conventional boxes.
Because a family tree doesn’t necessarily tell anybody who your family was.
Chapter 4: This Is Me
What were you actually like?
Personality, peculiarities, contradictions, habits, likes, dislikes, favourite phrases, pet hates, things you were brilliant at, and things you were spectacularly bad at.
The stuff that makes somebody say:
“That’s so you.”
Chapter 5: The Stories
The anecdotes that bring everything else to life.
The disasters.
The triumphs.
The ordinary moments.
The story everybody tells about you.
The story everybody tells incorrectly.
And the completely unimportant story you’d nevertheless like to survive you.
Chapter 6: What Mattered
The things you genuinely cared about.
People, values, beliefs, work, causes, achievements, contribution, pride, lessons, and the things you hope were a little different because you were here.
No requirement to identify your life’s grand purpose.
Maybe you had one.
Maybe you made excellent roast potatoes.
We’ll work with what we’ve got.
Chapter 7: The Bits That Don’t Fit Neatly
Mistakes, failures, wrong turns, difficult periods, regrets, things you survived, things you never fixed, and things you don’t want conveniently sanitised after your death.
Real lives rarely produce a satisfying narrative arc.
We’re not going to force yours into one.
Chapter 8: For God’s Sake, Don’t Say That
Your editorial instructions for after you’re dead.
The clichés.
The words you hate.
The relationships people mustn’t rewrite.
What they can make fun of.
What they absolutely cannot.
And anything that would make you come back and haunt them.
You won’t be there to interrupt.
Now’s your chance.
Chapter 9: What I’d Like to Leave With You
Your own words.
Thank-yous.
Messages.
Things you wish you’d said.
Apologies, if you actually want to make them.
Things you’re not sorry about.
Advice you’re qualified to give.
Advice you’re completely unqualified to give.
And anything else you’d like to leave behind.
Chapter 10: My Eulogy
Bring together what you’ve discovered.
Choose the people, stories, details, and ideas that matter.
Then write your eulogy.
Or don’t.
You can leave a finished version, a draft, or simply enough good material for somebody else to write it.
Plus: About This File
This is the practical bit.
It gives you somewhere to record what you’ve actually left behind, where it is, who knows about it, who you’d like to handle it, whether your writing can be edited, and how private material should be treated.
Because producing all of this and then leaving everybody to work out which copy they’re supposed to use would be unfortunate.
And: When You Need This
This bit isn’t really for you.
It’s for the person who eventually finds your File.
When You Need This talks them through what you’ve left behind and how to use it.
Hopefully, they won’t need it for a very long time.
But when they do, they won’t be opening a folder full of your life and wondering where on earth to begin.
What You’re Getting
My Eulogy File includes:
- the complete downloadable guided workbook;
- ten chapters of questions, prompts, and exercises;
- About This File, your practical record and instructions;
- When You Need This, written for the person who eventually uses it; and
- guidance for turning everything you’ve collected into a finished eulogy, if that’s what you decide to do.
There are deliberately no little boxes or three-line writing spaces beneath the questions.
Your answer might be:
No.
Or it might be six pages about what happened in Blackpool in 1987.
We don’t know.
So we give you the prompts.
You give yourself the space.
Use a dedicated notebook, ring binder, folder, or digital document alongside the workbook.
If you’d like to know exactly how that works, read How It Works.
What My Eulogy File Is Not
It’s not therapy.
It’s not legal advice.
It’s not a will.
It’s not a funeral plan.
It’s not an autobiography course.
It’s not a digital vault for your personal information.
It’s not a solemn exercise in identifying your legacy.
And it is most definitely not LinkedIn for dead people.
It’s a guided way to collect the material that could one day help somebody tell the story of your life in a way that actually resembles you.
Is It for Me?
Probably, if you’ve ever thought:
There are things about my life my family doesn’t know.
I don’t want those stories to disappear.
Nobody is going to remember that correctly.
That person mattered more to me than people realise.
Please don’t let my funeral become entirely about my job.
There are some things I don’t want shared.
If anyone calls me a warrior, I will haunt them.
Or simply:
Actually, I’d quite like a say.
You don’t need to be old.
You don’t need to be ill.
You don’t need an extraordinary life.
And you don’t need to want to write your own eulogy.
You just need a life you’d rather wasn’t reduced to dates and clichés.
Leave Them Something Useful
You don’t need to record everything.
You couldn’t.
You just need enough.
Enough people.
Enough stories.
Enough context.
Enough of the small stuff.
Enough of your voice.
Enough instructions to stop them saying anything truly appalling.
One day, somebody may have to work out what to say about you.
Give them a head start.
Leave them enough to get you right.