Not a bad read here. I go through all my preps each year after Christmas when the winter days are dark and cold so we can't get out and do anything else, running late this year so I'm still finishing up this years task.

A couple notes so far http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/p/0006.html

His arrangement of photos into year folders then month folders. Unless you can rely 100% on whatever photo index software you use (for example google's picassa or that adobe program) you better use a different method. Unless you can take the indexing software with you and install on whatever destination system you use (in the case of taking just your backup drive and getting a new desktop/laptop) that structure won't work. You'll find yourself later wanting a specific set of pictures "oldest son's Christmas play" So you'll look in december 2006 and can't find it then try maybe december 2005, or not there, december 2007, still can't find it because it was done at the end of November 2006. I tried that structure and it became unmanageable. I setteled on a format similar to "2006 11 27 Son's Christmas Play" or "2007 07 01 Family Vacation to <wherever>". This seems to have a good compromise by having a little bit of data so I can still find things without needing another program. Notice the ISO date format of YYYY MM DD which sorts best.

Notice his binder similar to what we've talked about with Blasts. I've done similar with a report cover for each person for all their personal info such as birth certificate and SScard. Those slide inside a zipper binder which then has shared info such as marriage license, as well as the backup hard drive. I have a pair of 160G laptop drives inside usb elclosures from where I upgraded the drives in each of our netbooks to 500G. The amount of true data fits with those 160G drives, the rest on the netbooks being for the OS(s) and applications and such. Those are getting a little small though so probably by next year I'll put a bigger drive in the netbooks like a 640 or 720 (just released) and the 500's will go for backups.

A box full of bills http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/p/0009.html just setup an e-mail alias and have the utility companies e-mail you the bills and then sign in to your banks web site and pay them. Don't just put bills in a box