The Big Book of Everything: A Free Life-Affairs Organizer
Published on - July 21st, 2009 (by J.D. Roth) 
Last summer, Mark Gavagan mailed me a copy of his It’s All Right Here life and affairs organizer. This three-ring binder is big and unwieldy, but is amazingly comprehensive. It not only offers pages for credit card and saving account information, but also includes space to record family medical history, business information, and more. There are even several pages of vinyl or plastic sleeves where you can store things like keys!
The It’s All Right Here life and affairs organizer provides 300 pages for recording your information (too many, if you ask me) and, like Suze Orman’s Ultimate Protection Portfolio, it’s a bit spendy. It’s certainly worth ordering if you’re looking for peace of mind, but there is another option.
After our discussion in February about how to organize your account information, GRS-reader Erik Dewey e-mailed me to say that he has created his own life-affairs organizer, and he’s willing to share it with others.
Dewey calls his 565kb PDF The Big Book of Everything, and he’s made it available for free download at his site. Dewey writes:
[The Big Book of Everything] is a notebook filled with all of the information anyone could possibly need to know about you. The idea is that in our lives we have countless things that we are involved in. On rare occasions, other people need this information and no one knows how to get it. That’s where the Big Book comes in. By filling this out and keeping it current, you can simplify the effort others have to take on your behalf.
This is basically a less-polished version of Gavagan’s life and affairs organizer. The Big Book of Everything includes sections for:
- Passwords and logins
- Bank accounts
- Insurance policies
- Tax records
- Debt obligations
- and more…
At just 37 pages, The Big Book of Everything is much more compact than the It’s All Right Here affairs organizer. And did I mention it’s free?
This is a great example of a Get Rich Slowly reader taking the time to create a tool to fill a need his in own life — and then being willing to share that solution with others. Thanks, Erik!
Update: By popular request, Erik has created editable versions of the Big Book in both Excel and PDF format. Awesome!
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I would suggest storing passwords more securely. I use Atek’s Logio Secure Password Organizer, which is a portable credit card size gadget that protects your login information with a master passcode. Other options are desktop password management software and USB password flash drives.
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Thanks to you and Erik for the free ebook. This looks like it will come in handy.
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I tried to download the Excel version and it is in 2007. How can I convert it to 2003?
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The only thing I would say to add, if possible, is an extended section on recording possessions that have serial numbers – I’m guessing cameras, firearms, computers, that kind of thing. I don’t know if these modern TV’s have serial numbers, I buy mine at yard sales , but whatever is stealable.
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@ Laurie – disk encryption works well except for a couple of situations such as when you copy your documents to another hard drive that isn’t encrypted, or to a USB drive, or email them, etc – then you’re unprotected unless you’ve set up encryption on all the locations your files may traverse
This also wouldn’t help if, for instance, you walked away from your computer and someone else sat down and started accessing your files.
But it’s a great technology and a good method of protecting your computer from theft or loss.
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If you really want to keep this on your computer – You could as someone suggest use the free TrueCrypt tool to make an encrypted drive – Which is really just a portable file that can be moved from computer to computer just fine and the encryption does not go away.
You could then store that on an external site for safe keeping – and being a truecrypt file makes it inaccessible to everyone else without the password.
matt
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looks like Erik had to take it done. bummer.
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Does anyone know where I can download this? I saw the website was taken down…I would love to have this powerful resource.
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Yeah a couple of days later & it’s gone! Major bummer. Sounded like a great resource. I’m using an organizer with over 100 pages in it & it’s just too much. 37 pages sounds a lot easier. Too bad all the other guys have these great big ones & then want to charge big bucks for them.
Angie
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Hi, Erik has taken down his book, but I’d really like a copy of it if anyone would be so kind to send me one. As an Attorney, I’m more than annoyed that Erik would receive a copyright infringement threat from the publisher when he’s never even seen the book and he’s distributing his work for free. That kind of behavior chills speech and is what encourages illegal filesharing and actual copyright infringement
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This is one of the most important things you can do for your family:
FREE advance health care directive forms (e.g. living will) for each state from the “Caring Connections” program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Website: http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload
You may also reach them via their HelpLine at 800/658-8898 or email at caringinfo@nhpco.org
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OK, I really need a copy of this “big book” that you speak of, but I can’t find it anywhere online now. If you’re reading this comment and you have a copy of the Big Book, could you pretty please email a copy to ‘buymyg5′ at the ever so popular hotmail.com?
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Bummer! I didn’t download it in time.
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Darn, I missed it too! This would be such a great resource to have.
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Nothing dies on the web.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:Rn5gEAOG0lcJ:www.erikdewey.com/big%2520book.xlsx+%22big+book+of+everything%22+dewey&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
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Hi, Erik has taken down his book, but I’d really like a copy of it if anyone would be so kind to send me one. As an Attorney, I’m more than annoyed that Erik would receive a copyright infringement threat from the publisher when he’s never even seen the book and he’s distributing his work for free. That kind of behavior chills speech and is what encourages illegal filesharing and actual copyright infringement.
Well, as an attorney who actually practices IP law, that comment is dripping with irony, because while what he did is legitimate, people sending you copies WOULD represent “actual copyright infringement.”
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try this link
http://www.erikdewey.com/bigbook.pdf
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There are like, “5.3 million” different books published about weight loss, most with the same basic info – eat healthy and exercise… The Big Book of Everything is simply another “organization” tool, of which there are tons as well -so what’s the big deal with him making his version available to us?
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Erik removed the file
It is unfortunate because it could have helped so many that would not spend $50 ON A 300pg binder…
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What a shame that Erik felt compelled to take down his very useful creation!
I definitely will NOT be buying It’s All Right Here — or anything else from that author and his publisher.
If anyone has this file in Excel format — or editable PDF format — please let me know via a follow-up comment.
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Below is a link to a useful article titled “The Living Will: A Guide To Health Care Decision Making” for anyone thinking about Advance Health Care Directives for themselves and/or loved ones.
The article is jointly written by an estate planning & elder law attorney (Elizabeth G. Clark, Esq.) and a physician (Jack P. Freer, M.D.).
It provides a terrific summary of issues and circumstances surrounding Advance Health Care Directives, even though it’s more than a decade old.
http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/research/bioethics/lwill.html
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Is anyone who has downloaded the files wiling to share them?
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Response to the earlier comment: “Well, as an attorney who actually practices IP law, that comment is dripping with irony, because while what he did is legitimate, people sending you copies WOULD represent ‘actual copyright infringement.’”
How would it be “copyright infringement” to send people files of a document that you had created yourself (or that a stranger on the internet had created on his own and had urged people to download for free) and which was in no way plagarized? If that is the way the law works, it’s nonsensical.
If authors can be so paranoid and threatening about “intellectual property”, even though they have published a book about a commonplace topic which has been written about by hundreds of others before them, no wonder our moderately “free market” system has gone to ***l in a handbasket.
I’m sorry that Erik felt he had to back down and take his own publication off of his own website, but the bullying author has not done his reputation any favors, and if I had to (although plainly it’s not necessary, since there are many books of this ilk out there), I’d spend 2 hours on amazon searching for a different book so that I didn’t have to buy the author’s.
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I looked up Mark Gavagan’s book on Amazon. It is listed there but they don’t even sell it, NOT THAT I EVER,EVER BUY IT,. They link to other sellers or used copies.
This mention in this blog may have actually helped him, it mentions his book, which is ranked over 109,000 down in the seller rankings, and hopefully only goes lower. As it is he just garnered himself a lot of ill will.
In case you weren’t able to get a copy of the Big Book of everything, your local library has some of these types of books. I had taken a few out but I think Eric’s is best.
Check out comment at 12:34 PM July 24 above.
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Thanks Slug for the link. I just went to that site, copied the whole content and pasted it into excel and a few minor tweeks resizing the text boxes at the top I have the whole book saved!
I can’t believe this was taken down! It’s just an organizational list like any you can make, copy or buy.
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MM,
Amazon has sold more than 7.5 million unique book titles up through March 2009.
A sales ranking of 109,000 – if that’s in fact the correct figure – out of 7.5 million is not exactly “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” but it’s not terrible either.
Here http://www.fonerbooks.com/images/sales.gif is a link to a graph by Morris Rosenthal that illustrates the meaning of the “Amazon Sales Rank” figure.
Lastly, more than 200 libraries across the country have made direct purchases of “The It’s All Right Here Life & Affairs Organizer” with a license for any patron to photocopy up to a dozen pages for their own personal use. If interested, search your library for ISBN:978-0-9800056-0-8
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Herr Gavagan-
Do not want.
Marketing fail.
Go away.
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I understand and agree with Erik’s interest in not screwing someone over by offering a similar product for free.
On the other hand, $50 for a checklist? Are you crazy?
For real, A nice notebook for $10 or a PDF for $5 and I’d consider it.
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Like Dan and Jim above, I keep my information in KeePass. I update this regularly with my information. Everything is encrypted. I occasionally will email this to my gmail account. I will admit that I mainly just have bank and utility information in this, and should definitely look at providing more life information in it.
Another thing to remember about KeePass is that it allows file attachments, so if you end up using a spreadsheet or PDF to organize your information, you can save it as an attachment in KeePass.
I am getting married soon, so I have been putting thought into the best way to maintain any combined records. It does have a feature I want to investigate where you keep the file on a shared drive/remote server for multiple users. This may become the way to go.
We also have a safety deposit box at the bank, so a quarterly printout of information or even an updated thumb drive with the encrypted information on it would also be useful.
While somewhat off topic, People may interested in something like the IronKey (www.ironkey.com) which I use constantly. This tumb drive could reside in a desktop computer and be shared out to the network. If the computer reboots or the thumb drive is removed, the drive is then locked. Put a password screen saver on the computer, and a thief would have to bust in while you’re using the computer and copy your files. I suppose you could do the same thing with TrueCrypt (but I personally had issues with TrueCrypt corrupting files on a USB drive).
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Another, less-pretty version is also available (in addition to Slug’s mention of a cached copy) here:
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:RgvfuieE6A0J:www.erikdewey.com/bigbook.pdf+%22erik+dewey%22+filetype:pdf&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
(Google “‘erik dewey’ ‘big book of everything’ filetype:pdf” and click on the html link). You’re on your own for the formatting issues, though….
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I think FlyLady should sue Mark Gavaghan for copyright infringement, his big book sounds a lot like her control journal (only not as useful). Except she wouldn’t, because the idea isn’t exactly new. FFS Mr Gavaghan, have some sense. No one is going to buy your product now.
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I’d considered buying “It’s All Right Here” and had bookmarked it for later after seeing it on GRS, but after seeing the author’s request that Dewey remove The Big Book, I’ve deleted that bookmark.
Not only will I not be purchasing IARH, but I’m actively praying that the gods responsible for internet karma are swift, decisive and extremely punitive when dealing with Gavagan.
If anyone has a copy they downloaded and are willing to share, please email to andy (at) gin-n-tonic.com
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Folks, I understand your frustration, but I want to make it clear that I don’t think Gavagan is being a jerk or an asshole here. I don’t think he chose the best path of resolving the conflict, but he’s genuinely concerned that Dewey copied his work. I don’t think that’s the case (I’ve seen both works), but Gavagan is worried about it not from a “I will squash you sense!” but more in a “Yikes! My hard work is being undermined” sense.
Anyhow, I don’t think Gavagan is worthy of ire, though I do think this whole situation could have been resolved better. I wrote about the entire thing today at my personal blog: WIN-WIN vs. LOSE-LOSE: Two Approaches to Conflict Resolution.
I still have hopes that Dewey and Gavagan will reach some sort of agreement that benefits everyone.
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I can appreciate that many people are frustrated about this, but here’s my point of view (which I’ve shared with many writers of very nasty emails I’ve received):
Every book, blog, song, film, speech, article and website stands to some degree on the shoulders of others – bits and pieces of others’ work are consciously or unconsciously incorporated into every “original” work. This is an important element of how ideas evolve – as John Donne says, “No man is an island.”
So the question we should be considering isn’t whether some elements of one person’s work are drawn directly from the work of others. The question is “At what point is the line crossed and too much taken?”
Two points to consider are: (1) Was the “heart” of the work taken?; and (2) Does the new work fulfill the demand for the original?
(see http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html by Richard Stim, J.D. for a short-but-excellent read about principles of fair use)
While I agree Erik’s entire work is certainly not a duplicate copy of mine, there was enough to cause genuine concern.
Please take a moment to compare the table of contents for the free online document to the table of contents for my book. If you didn’t know, someone has found a cached copy and listed how to access it in the comments of the “Get Rich Slowly” blog entry.
Here’s a link to the PDF for my book’s table of contents:
http://www.affairsorganizer.com/Majr_Sections.pdf
Once you compare them, I think you’ll see very quickly it’s close to identical, copying the entire organization and thinking behind my book, which I devoted myself to for almost 15 months because of my terrible personal experience in trying to get through all these issues when my Dad died in 2003.
Please contact Erik yourself. He’s a very nice and intelligent guy and he’ll tell you there was no talk whatsoever about threats or lawsuits or copyright infringement.
I very politely and respectfully described my concerns about how similar elements of his are to the book I put all my effort into and that his free book might have a serious impact on demand for my books (including my new much shorter and cheaper one: http://12criticalthings.com/ ).
I asked Erik to please consider taking his book down and replacing with a link to my new shorter book and a code that would donate 20% to the charity of his choice.
Instead, he generously decided to take down his links because he didn’t intend to harm my little one-person business.
I’m not some terrible person – I’m just a guy who has put everything he has into these books and I’m trying to make a go of it, even though it’s a difficult struggle.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
-Mark Gavagan
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Figures I hold off on checking feeds for a few days and this happens. Anyone have the pdf or xls that they could send me? vrillusions AT gmail DOT com Thanks
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Hi,
I d-loaded the “Big Book” on my computer in New York. My uncle passed away this week and I wanted to give the “Big Book” to my aunt to help her organize the household affairs. There were many financial things that he was responsible for that she now needs to handle. Can someone e-mail me the pdf at shadra AT shadrastrickland DOT com? I’d like to leave a copy for her before I head back to NYC. Many thanks.
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Well, I stumbled upon this too late, unfortunately. I don’t think that Gavagan handled this well at all. Wonder what resources he used to create his book? Guess he’s lucky that others who’ve written similar books didn’t go after him. Like others here, I probably won’t do business with him because of this issue.
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Unfortunately, I found this link too late to get the free PDF and am disappointed that Gavagan took the steps he did. I guess he should be happy that the creators of other similar books, like Orman, didn’t go after him.
I’d rather have something I can fill in on my computer anyway and then make digital copies than have to hand write all the stuff in a book. Does anyone else know of a similar, computer-based offering?
TIA!
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Happen to find an excellent book just as good at http://WWW.aier.org, named ” If Something Should Happen to Me”
Price $8. if you mention coupon”09- 0043″
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There are now cheaper digital download versions of both of my books*, so your information and decisions can be typed-in on your computer, saved, printed and changed at any time.
*”12 Critical Things Your Family Needs to Know” (quick/easy version) and “The It’s All Right Here Life & Affairs Organizer” (comprehensive version)
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Mark Gavagan,
“his free book [The Big Book of Everything]might have a serious impact on demand for my books”
While I applaud you products and the work you put into creating your products, I also think the actions you took were inappropriate.
Every home maker should have a “life organizer”, and it should be standardized, if anything, but not commercialized. It may be profited from, but copyrights should not even be considered unless there is evidence someone made an effort to duplicate and redistribute an original work that goes along with the organizer.
Hypothetical Scenario:
You are the first person to sell sliced bread.
Someone who gives people instructions on how to slice their own bread.
What do you do?
A:Ask them to stop because you have to make a living.
B:Improve upon my product or create a marketing plan to keep it from even being a problem.
C:Both.
D:Something else…
I personally would choose B, because I am not afraid of change(A), and because in choosing C I would look like a jerk.
I think Dewey should keep offering his work, or even market it. It may even be god for your own business as more people become more aware of the importance of keeping records.
Fair competition is good. It leads to improvement.
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Hugo Toby Kedinshmear,
Your hypothetical scenario of sliced bread is not at all apples-to-apples.
All personal/financial organizers share some common elements – such as documenting life insurance and bank accounts – by the very nature of their purpose and function.
However, this does not void the scores of important, original and proprietary elements in my books, based upon many months of tireless, difficult and grief-filled work. I firmly believe these deserve to be protected from copying.
“…While I agree Erik’s entire work is certainly not a duplicate copy of mine, there was enough to cause genuine concern.
Please take a moment to compare the table of contents for the free online document to the table of contents for my book….
Once you compare them, I think you’ll see very quickly it’s close to identical, copying the entire organization and thinking behind my book, which I devoted myself to for almost 15 months…”
I agree that fair competition is good. I don’t believe this was an instance of fair competition (though I don’t think for a second that it was put forth with bad intentions – as I wrote earlier, Erik is a very nice and intelligent guy).
Thanks for reading.
Respectfully,
-Mark
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What an excellent example of exactly what is wrong with our IP laws and how it can be easily abused by people.
IMO, if someone can publish something for free which has similar value to what you’re charging money for, then your product clearly doesn’t have that much value. Maybe you should spend some time adding more value to your product instead of trying to shut down other versions which you yourself admit are not copies of your work.
What’s next? JD scouring the internet for anyone with the same “organization” as one of his blog posts and asking them to take it down because it has an impact on the banner ad traffic his site is generating? This site is valuable not because of any individual post but because JD connects with me and provides value above and beyond the hundreds of other personal finance sites that could exist.
Mark, I recommend you educate yourselves on the concepts of business models in the digital era:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090719/2246525598.shtml
I can’t even see how this is even a desirable situation for you. The typical person would:
(1) see this blog post, read that there was either (a) your version or (b) Dewey’s version.
(2) decide if they felt like printing out a PDF with all this stuff or just buy your version.
If they didn’t want to print out the PDF, they were your customer anyway and the existence of Dewey’s version would not impact you.
If they did want to print out the PDF, you “suggesting” it being taken down has created the completely new situation of not purchasing your version out of spite.
What’s the scenario of where you have helped yourself here? Someone is desperate for financial organization *right now* and since they can’t get it for free, they’ll just click on literally any other source with it immediately available? This doesn’t sound like a GRS reader to me.
You have shot yourself in the foot here.
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Ugh I can’t believe I missed the xls posting. Would someone be kind enough to send to dmourer2 at yahoo. TIA!
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