This is the final installment in our Digital Caregiving series. If you're just catching up, you can find the whole series here. Short version: for the last month, I've been walking you through exactly what I wish I'd had in place before that hospital call came in. This is the last stop.

But I didn't want to just tell my story and leave you to piece together your own plan from it. So Digital Caregiving, the course, opens its doors Monday, August 24 (same framework, but live, with me and J.B. walking you through it step by step, before your version of that 2am phone call happens). This is the Beta version of this program and seats will be limited, so if you want the best shot at a spot, get on the waitlist now.

Okay. Let's get to it.

Surprise! Bonus content. In putting this series together, J.B. and I did a bunch of talking, brainstorming, and generally thinking through all the things I did but didn't think to mention (caregiving is no joke, and I'm running on about half a mental battery over here). So think of this as a roundup of all the "oh yeah, that thing too!" we collected along the way.

Hospitals can be high-theft locations, and your person may not always be alert enough to stop someone from walking off with their tech. That's a top-five sucky disaster, but it doesn't have to be fatal if you've got backups.

Back devices up to a local location (an external hard drive works fine), and then also to a secure cloud provider (something like Proton Drive, not iCloud, not Google, mkay?). Make sure you and your person both know how to restore from backup before you need to.

Backing up a smartphone is nothing like backing up your reading device, which is nothing like backing up your tablet, which is nothing like backing up your laptop. Get an agreed-upon, tested strategy in place before it's needed.

A synced-up family calendar makes life so much easier, especially if your person is in for a lot of follow-ups. I spent days scheduling all of Mom's appointments, and being able to tell her "it's all on the calendar" let her go check for herself that everything was in order. It also makes communicating the inevitable reschedules a lot cleaner (and a lot more definitive).

You need to make sure the device itself is secure. We've covered that in past issues, but it's not a set-it-and-forget-it job (settings and operating systems change). Stay on top of this one.

Turns out I could've made my life easier this whole time with a feature that's been sitting on iPhones for years: Assistive Access. With a passcode, it locks a phone down to only six preselected apps. Jeremy White made a great video on how it works (here), and there's a thorough writeup on setting it up and personalizing it (here). Android users, this one's for you.

The win: your person can still get to, say, their music, without being able to wander into shopping sites or whatever other trouble is a tap away. They keep the ability to reach friends and family, but lose most of the ability to accidentally cause a catastrophe.

TIL, right? Wish I'd known about it a few months back. Now I do, for next time, and for the rest of you.

This is where the story turns into the tool. Everything in this series (this post included) is the stuff I wish I'd had executed and ready to go, before I needed it. The course is that, live: five 60-minute sessions, twice a week, for about three weeks, walking you through building your own person’s digital safety net (accounts, passwords, devices, all of it) before your version of that hospital call comes in.

Beta doors open Monday, August 24, and seats are limited on purpose. Get on the waitlist now for the best shot at a spot.

Save my spot on the waitlist →

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