Why Is There Always One Person Who Knows Where Everything Is?

Is there someone in your family who can answer all your “Where is it?” questions? Perhaps the asker has been searching through drawers or looking in the pantry for the last ten minutes, unable to see the thing they’re looking for. Then comes the often-asked question, “Where’s the [fill-in-the-blank]?” And the one who knows the answer calls out and says, “It’s on the third shelf down, behind the Vegemite” or “In the second drawer.” This person exists in many households, regardless of what your 'family' looks like.

If you’re that person (let’s call you “the knower”), you know how frustrating it can be to be constantly asked when the person looking could have easily found it if they had looked a little more thoroughly (or perhaps looked before asking). (I’m sure most mothers can relate!)

If you hadn’t been there to answer the question, there’s no doubt it would have been found, even if it had taken a few extra minutes or a tiny bit more effort on their part.

But what if you’re the knower and you’re no longer there? This post is to explore what happens all too often when you die, and suddenly it’s not about finding the peanut butter or the scissors. It’s about knowing all aspects of how the household operates. Just like your phone has an Operating System, so too does every household, regardless of its structure.

The unfortunate thing is how often that Operating System lives entirely in one person's head and how problematic that can become when they die. And that’s the difference between information being available and information being findable. If information is only in your head and not documented, then another person has to step into that system without a manual.

A household is a bit like a business. Not in the corporate sense, but in the sense that it has:

• systems

• processes

• people

• passwords

• suppliers

• schedules

• assets

• bills

• maintenance

• records

• contacts

• decisions

• unwritten rules

A well-run business will usually have some kind of Standard Operating Procedure and training manual. Even though most households are akin to a business in terms of how they operate, we don’t tend to think of households this way. Yet, we assume they’ll keep running, probably without ever thinking about it.

A household can have an incredibly sophisticated operating system, even though nobody sat down and built it. These household systems usually develop organically, often based on a person’s strength or availability. And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about a traditional family, a single-parent household, a blended family, a couple without children, or someone who lives alone. The operating system still exists. The difference is simply who knows which parts of it.

Often, someone manages the finances; someone knows the children’s school routines; someone takes care of the pets; someone organises the maintenance and repairs. And sometimes, one person knows all of it.

Imagine walking into someone else’s kitchen and being told to make dinner for their family. You might know perfectly well how to cook, but that doesn't mean you know how their kitchen works. Where are the knives? Which cupboard has the pots? What's in the fridge? What does everyone eat? What needs using first?

Now imagine that instead of a kitchen, you're suddenly responsible for your entire household, or even someone else's. You may be perfectly capable of managing it. But you're trying to operate a system you didn't build, without the person who knew how it worked and without an instruction manual.

Perhaps you lived alongside it because you were part of the family, but you may not have been involved in the daily running of the household at all. Either way, without your household's operating system being documented, the people who may have to step into your life aren't only dealing with grief. They're suddenly having to navigate logistical chaos, too, not to mention the decisions and mountain of death administration that can follow.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be sharing with you the things that are worth documenting to avoid this chaos.

You might be the knower in your household without even realising just how much you know. I’ll leave you with a gentle exercise to think about:

What do you know that nobody else knows, and what would happen if they suddenly had to find it, understand it or deal with it without you?