Before a natural disaster strikes and you're faced with losing all your possessions, make a home inventory list, scan in documents and take pictures of the contents of each room in your home. Could you remember all your possessions and would you be able to make a list of each item in each room of every house you own? Yes it can be a daunting task to start a list, but each item you add is another item you don't have to worry about. Loading documents, certificates or any other relevant information with each item gives you a better chance of capturing the value of the item. Adding side notes can also help you in the future when extra information is needed.
Once you've activated then channels you require, you can create your houses and the rooms in all of them. You can either start with the contents of the house, or with the building itself. If you are starting with the building, you could start adding in the type of paint used on the outside walls, or what type of gutters were installed who installed it and when. Almost all the information loaded is supported with a dropdown menu to make cataloguing quicker and easier. You get to choose how much information is loaded, the more you put in the more you get out. If you are starting with the interior you could start with the light fittings or the furniture. Any books, toys, televisions or DVD's can be loaded into a single room with information on each item.
I personally took digital pictures of each item in each room first. Then I was able to sit with my laptop and add just the basic information for each item and a picture. When that was done I realised that most of the house was done already. I was then able to "fill in the blanks" for each room and on some occasions elaborate on some items I had loaded earlier. Within a week I could see my house take form as I loaded more information in each day and I found that I had possessions I had totally forgotten about and had real value. Of course it's an ongoing process, but at least now I only need to update now and again. I am also able to get email reminders sent to me whenever a pool filter needs to be changed or a firearm needs to be relicensed.
Capturing all this information is crucial for an insurance claim, and the more information you have on an item the more you can prove its value. The question still remains of where do you store all this information? If you store it on your home computer and your home gets destroyed, all your information is lost. If you were able to retrieve your information from the internet through the software package you bought and installed on your home computer, then when your home is destroyed you still can't access your information. Keeptrackofmythings.com helps your store your information in a secure "online vault" where you can access all your information from any computer anywhere in the world.
