Listing the services you use

There are more of these than you think: domestic and overseas exchanges, lending services, NFT marketplaces, tax calculation tools, portfolio trackers, price alert apps. Each one got an account when you needed it and was then forgotten. The first purpose of the list is simply to know what you are signed up to.

Four fields suffice: the service, the email address you registered with, what you use it for, and roughly when you opened it. The email address matters more than people expect. If you use several addresses, the failure mode a few years on is not being able to log in because you cannot remember which one you signed up with. Conversely, knowing the address gives you a path back even when the password is gone.

Be equally clear about what stays out: passwords, two-factor recovery codes, API keys, seed phrases. Those are credentials, and putting them in the list turns the list into a key. Its value lies in being harmless on its own — which is exactly what makes it something you can store reasonably casually, and hand to family when needed.

The list also drives a clear-out. Written down, it exposes the exchange you used once, the account sitting at almost zero, the tool that has since become something else. Dormant accounts widen your exposure to takeover and data breaches the longer they sit. Export the history, then close them.

One caveat: the list does reveal roughly what you hold. Do not leave it somewhere generally visible; think about how the right person reaches it at the right time. Designing that for succession is covered separately.