Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates

Professional document management and liaison services for Central Texas families navigating life’s transitions.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

This is crazy. How is this possible? I don’t want to think there may have been some shenanigans going on.

[AutoInvent @autoinvent]

Two men invented the telephone on the exact same day. Only one of them you've heard of.

Alexander Graham Bell filed his patent for the telephone on February 14, 1876.

Elisha Gray filed the exact same invention the same day. Bell's lawyer arrived at the patent office a few hours earlier.

Gray spent the rest of his life in legal battles trying to prove he got there first. He never won.

The entire outcome came down to who filed first. Not who invented it first. Not who was smarter. Not who worked harder.

Just who filed first.

A provisional patent timestamps your idea the moment you file. In the US, that timestamp is everything.

Don't be Elisha Gray. https://t.co/YNNq8lgQXY

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@jennyrozelle There have been a few times working as an estate organizer where I was caught in the middle of this conversation. It was initially awkward, but eventually, I firmly, purposefully placed myself out of it. I found and provided the documents that answered those questions.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

I have witnessed this a few times in my career as an estate organizer. It is difficult for all those involved.

[Jenny Rozelle @jennyrozelle]

Trend I'm seeing in estate planning:

More families where an adult child (40+) lives with parents. Not as a caregiver, but as a co-resident.

And it raises questions like:

- Who inherits the home?
- Are expectations documented?

The conversation is never simple.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@FishAndFix @SaysSimulation Older, single men are worse off than women. They are less likely to get medical care, and die of despair at a higher rate.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@furiadidonna @SaysSimulation I work with seniors on a regularly. I also setup nursing care for my relatives.
From experience, please do not rely on nursing services alone. They are mostly unreliable unless you have several hundred thousand dollars solely for care.
They will fail you time and time again.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@OneFlewOver_USA @SaysSimulation Nursing homes are filled with people without children, so eventually, no one visits.
There are no guarantees in life, but if you’re childless, you may still have younger relatives to come by. Maybe.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

Great, honest comments on this thread. This is what we help with on a regular basis.

[feral tomboy @peachtard]

this lady on IG posted about how she's decluttering her house so her loved ones don't have to deal with it when she dies and boomers are having meltdowns in the comments

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@peachtard I love this thread. This is something I handle on a regular basis. It’s difficult for both the elder parent and the adult child.

[SMB Attorney @SMB_Attorney]

Okay, late night story time.

And actually this should probably be the last time I tell this story… it’s time for me to move on.

But many people over the years have asked me to give the full details and I’ve never had it in me but tonight I feel good so whatever… here goes:

My youngest son turns five today.

In early 2022, when he was just a little over one year old, we started to notice something wasn’t right with him.

He’d fall… a lot. Now babies fall down, obviously, so it took a little while for it to click.

But this was more than that.

One day, I’m at Disney with my older son when his mother called:

“I think something is wrong and you should come home.”

Gulp.

Doctors, testing, observation… it finally clicked and before long it was confirmed:

He had a rare form of pediatric epilepsy called Doose Syndrome.

I took this news really hard.

Someone said “this is a life changing diagnosis” and I remember dying a little bit inside hearing those words.

All I ever wanted was for my kids to have a good, normal life.

But then it got worse. Way worse.

July 4th, 2022.

While most people were grilling, we got a MyChart update that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

Bloodwork came back and it said the following:

“Indicative of X-linked ALD”

I had never seen those words before so as anyone would, I quickly Googled it.

X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy.

X-ALD.

A rare, fatal neurological disease that destroys the brain.

Progressively. Completely.

He was one year old.

There are no words for what that moment was like. I am not going to try to find them tonight.

I collapsed in my yard and cried in a way I could never recreate.

We scrambled to get our son’s doctor on the phone.

It was a holiday. I screamed at the nurse on call.

His PA finally called us back.

What happened after that is a total blur, but I remember her using the words “new journey” several times and it destroyed me.

Then, believe it not, it got even worse.

X-ALD is a genetic condition that disproportionately impacts boys.

And if my 1-year-old son had it, it meant there was a 50/50 chance his older brother had it too.

I remember the exact moment I discovered that fact.

A 60-minutes episode of two brothers, both affected and dying on X-ALD.

My soul left my body.

I went from perfectly normal July 4th holiday to finding out my whole family might be dying in a matter of hours.

To make matters worse, I had just started a law firm a few weeks earlier.

This wasn’t the time for a family health emergency.

I spent a lot of time that month walking into the woods behind our house.

Between phone calls, between emails, between the ordinary demands of a life that had suddenly become completely surreal.

Out there among the trees, screaming at the sky and crying until I had nothing left.

A father who did not know how to hold what he was holding.

I learned *everything* about X-ALD.

I read studies and the meta studies on the studies.

I analyzed his test results from every angle.

By the time we met with the head of pediatric neurology for the local children’s hospital on July 12th, I could tell I knew more about X-ALD than he did.

He was wearing socks with little bottles of wine on them and I remember vividly wanting punch him in the face.

We started making plans to go Minnesota to receive care at the leading center for X-ALD.

Then we met with the geneticist.

She was amazing. We rush ordered genetic testing…

They debated whether to test his older brother too.

“It will be $500 extra dollar” they said.

Everyone thought we should wait but me. I had to yell but I finally got my way.

Thirty-one days.

That is how long we lived with it.

Thirty-one days of looking at this small, perfect, laughing child and believing, based on everything we had been told, that we were going to lose him.

Thirty-one days of my older son also being at risk.

You can’t un-live that…

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@SMB_Attorney Thank you for sharing. I am grateful to be following you here on this amazing platform.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@HustleBitch_ I don't listen to these stories, but I'm game tonight.
I have a pain in my jaw. I closed my eyes, focused on the pain, breathed slowly, and silently said, "Yahweh" over and over.
The pain is almost gone.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@Jacob_Naviaux I wish you were in Austin. I have a group of ladies that work with me on assignments like these.
We love to organize!

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@himbo_urbanist Alpine, Texas.
Both working and abandoned stations:

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@realEstateTrent I never found WeWork and coworking spaces appealing. I need my own small, private, high-end office, but with the opportunity to occassionally mingle with like-minded businesses.
Any in the Austin area? 😃

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@DylanEveryday @thomposting This was one of my favorites. Nothing prepared me for Stevie Wonder!!!

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@lacostejonathan It's so exciting to see this!

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@szeloof @fab2 Congratulations, and welcome to Texas.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@AgathaChocolats Blind Jerome never had a chance.

[XY @xydotdot]

Being lazy today is extremely expensive.

I am spending insane amounts of time with AI, and I cannot get over how much this technology has appreciated the value of time.

As of today, every person alive is holding the most expensive hour humanity has ever held.

Just compare what an hour could produce 100 years ago versus what it can produce now. I honestly think 1 hour today can be exchanged, in output terms, for what could have taken a lifetime 100 years ago.

If you are reading this, understand what sits in your hands.

You are living inside the highest-leverage version of time that has ever existed, and you should feel ashamed of wasting it. Throwing away 1 hour today is akin to throwing away a lifetime in another era.

Which is why attention is so valuable today. The attention they are trying to take from you, all those hours spent scrolling, is quite literally lifetimes.

The incumbents do not want your attention only because it prints revenue for them, they also want it because every hour you spend sedated inside their feed is an hour you do not spend building, learning, competing, or becoming dangerous.

Do not give them the most productive unit humanity has ever possessed.....

Resist the scroll, go be dangerous.

[Austin Organized: Managing Documents & Estates @AustinOrganized]

@MichaelDell @DellTech @UTAustin This is going to be incredible!
And, why haven't I followed you before? Good stuff!😃