A lot has happened over the last 3 months and it has forced many of us to reflect, in one way or another. With the chaos in the world lately, do you feel closer to your family these days or farther apart? As we start thinking about how we can safely come back together as consumers, businesses, and families we should take the time to keep hold of some lessons from the last few months.

Have you resumed visits with family? It might not be the time to host a large family dinner or weekend gathering. But if your local pandemic planning allows it, we hope you can have at least some small visits with those you love.

Spontaneity

In the office, we have definitely been missing the instant connections and convenient collaboration of having everyone in the same place. It is hard to recreate the spontaneity of “water cooler” connections like this but setting up times for everyone to come together in an unstructured manner has helped us stay connected. We have been enjoying a regular Thursday happy hour with weekly themes. Would something like this help with your family? Instead of Sunday Dinner, could a Sunday FaceTime help? Who knows, this may allow for family members further afield to connect more than they have been able to in person.

Projects and Systems

For us here at Evolution Strategies, the pandemic has moved along our efforts to make better use of technology. We have also seen much more rapid work at the insurance carrier end to get their systems ready for remote work. While no one is happy to be in this situation, having an array of different ways to connect and work has been positive. Some of these were lower on the priority list but needing them in this emergency helped get some big steps in a short time.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic caused you to think about things that have been languishing at the bottom of your to-do list? Maybe it’s that small home renovation, fixing up your patio or yard, or perhaps the health concerns related to COVID-19 have forced you to look at your own legacy.

Making progress on this isn’t the sort of thing that can be quickly hashed out over a casual FaceTime with your family. Like many of our projects in the office, this probably still needs dedicated, structured time.

Legacy Planning Conversations

So how can we make the space for big conversations like legacy planning? A family meeting could happen now virtually. Large public companies and non-profits are beginning to have virtual General Meetings so why not virtual Family Meetings? Now, it may be harder to check in with body language and the technology element can be trickier for some family members than others so it might not be the right fit for everyone.

At the least, this could be a good time to start the process of thinking about what it is you may want to communicate about your legacy wishes and what input you may want to have from those you love. How ready do you feel? This can’t be accomplished without the proper forethought & planning via a spontaneous phone call.

We’d be happy to work with you to bring a structured process to this planning, such as by starting to craft a Family Wealth Philosophy to give clarity to your family’s wealth purpose.

This article also appeared at EthicalPlan.