What to include in a legacy document: a practical guide

You sat down to write a legacy document. You opened a blank page. You typed "Dear Family" and then stared at the cursor for twenty minutes before closing your laptop and making a sandwich.

Sound familiar? You're not alone. Almost everyone who tries to write a legacy document hits the same wall, and it's not writer's block. It's the feeling that you need to capture everything — every lesson, every memory, every piece of wisdom you've gathered over a lifetime — and somehow fit it into something your family will actually want to read.

Here's the thing: you don't need to capture everything. You need to include the right things. And the right things, when it comes to legacy document contents, fall into four categories: memories, values, life lessons, and hopes for the people you love. That's it. Not your entire life story. Not a philosophical treatise. Just the parts that would help someone who loves you understand who you really were — and carry a piece of you forward.

This guide walks through each category with concrete examples, because knowing what to include is only half the battle. Knowing what good entries actually look like is the other half.

Memories: the specific ones, not the Hallmark ones

The first thing most people reach for when writing a legacy document is memories. Good instinct. But here's where people go wrong: they write memories the way you'd describe a vacation to a stranger. General. Pleasant. Forgettable.

"I have so many wonderful memories of our family vacations." Okay, but what does your daughter do with that sentence? Nothing. She smiles politely in her mind and moves on.

Now compare it to this: "I remember the summer we drove to the coast and the car broke down outside that gas station in the middle of nowhere. You were seven. We ate vending machine Doritos on the curb while we waited for the tow truck, and you told me it was the best dinner you'd ever had."

See the difference? The second one is a memory she can hold. It smells like something. She can see the curb and taste the Doritos. It proves you were paying attention to the ordinary moments, not just the ones with cake and candles.

When deciding what memories to include in your legacy document, ask yourself:

• Does this memory belong to us? Not a memory everyone in the family shares, but something specific between you and the person reading it. The more particular, the better.
• Can I see it when I close my eyes? If you can't picture the scene — the room, the weather, what someone was wearing — you've drifted into summary. Get back to the moment.
• Would they be surprised I remembered this? Those are the gold ones. The moments they didn't think anyone noticed.

You don't need dozens of these. Three or four vivid, honest memories are worth more than twenty vague ones. If you need help getting started with the right prompts, these ten questions for your legacy document are a good place to begin.

Values: show them, don't list them

Here's where legacy documents go sideways fast. Someone sits down, thinks about their values, and writes something like:

"I value honesty, integrity, and kindness. I believe in treating others with respect and working hard for what you want."

That's not wrong. But it's not useful either. Your family already knows you value those things (or they don't, and a list isn't going to change their mind). What they don't know is how you came to hold those values. The story behind the principle is where the real teaching lives.

Compare "I value honesty" with this:

"I learned honesty the hard way when I was seventeen. I backed the car into a pole in the grocery store parking lot and told your grandpa someone must have hit it while I was inside. He knew I was lying — I could see it on his face — but he didn't call me out. He just looked at me for a long time and then said, 'I hope whatever you're protecting was worth it.' I felt worse than if he'd yelled. I told him the truth about ten minutes later, sitting at a red light, and he just nodded. That was it. But I've thought about that nod for thirty years."

Now your family understands not just what you believe, but why. They can see the moment that planted the seed. And that story will stick with them in a way that "I value honesty" never could.

For each value you want to include, try to anchor it to a specific experience. When did this value get tested? When did you fail to live up to it? When did you see someone else model it in a way that changed you? If you want a deeper look at writing about values specifically, this guide on legacy letters about values and beliefs goes into the process in detail.

A few values worth considering (with the kind of questions that draw out real stories):

• Generosity — When did someone's generosity surprise you? When were you generous and it cost you something real?
• Courage — What's the bravest thing you ever did? What's the bravest thing you ever watched someone else do?
• Forgiveness — Who did you forgive when it was hard? Who forgave you when you didn't deserve it?
• Curiosity — What did you stay interested in your whole life? What did you wish you'd explored more?
• Faith or belief — Not just religious faith, but what did you believe in when things got dark? What kept you going?

Life lessons: the stuff you learned the expensive way

Your life lessons are different from your values. Values are about who you are. Life lessons are about what you know — the practical, hard-won knowledge that only comes from living through things.

And this is where a lot of people get nervous, because the best life lessons usually come from the worst experiences. The marriage that didn't work out. The job you stayed at too long. The friendship you let fade because you were too proud to apologize first. The year everything fell apart and you had to figure out who you were without the things you thought defined you.

Those are the lessons worth writing down. Not because your family needs to hear about your failures, but because your failures are where the useful knowledge lives. Anyone can tell someone to "follow their dreams." Only you can tell them what happened when you followed yours off a cliff and had to climb back up.

Here's what separates a good life lesson from a fortune cookie:

Vague: "Don't take your health for granted."

Specific: "I spent my thirties working sixty-hour weeks and eating takeout in my car between meetings. I thought I was building something important. Then I threw out my back so badly I couldn't pick up your sister when she was two, and I realized I'd been trading the thing I couldn't get back for things I could. I wish someone had told me that being healthy isn't just about not being sick. It's about being able to show up physically for the people who need you."

The vague version is true but useless. The specific version has a scene, a consequence, and a lesson that someone can actually apply to their own life.

When writing life lessons for your legacy document, don't worry about being comprehensive. Pick three to five lessons that changed how you live. For each one, answer:

• What happened?
• What did you learn?
• What would you do differently if you could?
• How has this lesson shaped your decisions since?

Hopes: what you wish for the people you love

This is the section that tends to make people cry while they're writing it, which is how you know you're doing it right.

Your hopes for your family aren't instructions. They're not a to-do list for your kids or a set of expectations for your grandchildren. They're something gentler than that. They're the things you'd say if you could sit with each person you love at every crossroads they'll face after you're gone.

And the temptation here is to keep it big and vague. "I hope you find happiness." "I hope you live a full life." "I hope you know how much I love you."

Those are fine. But they're not enough on their own.

Try this instead: get specific about the kind of happiness you hope they find. Talk about what "a full life" means to you, based on what you've seen and lived. Tell them what you love about them — not in general, but in the particular ways that make them who they are.

Vague: "I hope you find someone who makes you happy."

Specific: "I hope you find someone who makes you laugh at the grocery store. Someone who asks about the boring parts of your day because they actually want to know. Someone who lets you be quiet without assuming something's wrong. That's what your mom did for me, and I didn't know how much it mattered until I had it."

Vague: "I'm proud of you."

Specific: "I'm proud of the way you handled moving to a new school when you were twelve. You didn't complain, even though I know it was hard. You made one friend on the first day by sharing your lunch, and that kid came to your wedding fifteen years later. That's who you are — someone who makes room for people. Don't lose that."

Your hopes can also include the things you hope they'll avoid, the traps you fell into, the patterns you wish you'd broken earlier. Not as warnings, but as gifts: here's what I learned so you don't have to learn it the same way.

If you're thinking about writing separate letters for different family members along with your legacy document, this guide on how to write a meaningful legacy letter covers the full process.

Putting it together (without losing your mind)

You don't have to write all four sections in order, or in one sitting, or even in the same month. Legacy documents are living things. They're allowed to grow slowly.

Here's a process that works for a lot of people:

Start with whatever's easiest. For some people, that's memories. For others, it's life lessons. Don't force yourself to begin with the emotionally heavy stuff. Write the section that feels most natural and let momentum carry you into the harder ones.

Write ugly first drafts. Your legacy document doesn't need to be polished. It needs to be honest. If you spend all your energy making the sentences pretty, you'll run out of gas before you say anything real. Get the raw material down. You can clean it up later — or leave it messy, because sometimes the messy version is the most human one.

Talk out loud, then write it down. If you're stuck, pretend the person you're writing to is sitting across from you. What would you tell them? Record yourself on your phone if you need to. Some of the best legacy documents started as voice memos that got transcribed later.

Revisit it once a year. Your legacy document isn't a one-and-done project. You'll have new memories, new lessons, new hopes as your life keeps moving. Set a recurring reminder — a birthday, New Year's, whatever feels right — to open it up and add whatever's accumulated since the last time.

Don't aim for complete. Aim for true. A two-page document that's honest and specific will mean more to your family than a fifty-page document full of generic wisdom. The goal isn't to capture your entire life. It's to capture enough of it that the people you love can feel your presence when they need it.

Start with one true thing

If you've read this far and you're still not sure where to begin, try this: write one entry from one category. Just one.

One memory you've never told anyone. One value and the story behind it. One lesson you learned the hard way. One specific hope for someone you love.

That's your legacy document. It already exists. Everything you add from here is a bonus.

Most people who sit down to figure out what to include in a legacy document discover that the hard part isn't finding material. It's giving yourself permission to be honest on paper. To say the things you've been carrying around. To admit that your life, even the messy parts, contains something worth passing on.

It does. And the people you love are going to be glad you wrote it down.

When I Die Files gives you a secure, private space to write the letters that matter most — and make sure they reach the right people at the right time.