How to Run a Dry Run

You told her the password. She still couldn't open it — true story, ours, and the reason this feature exists. "I explained it" is not a plan. A dry run is 45 minutes that tells you the truth.

The rule of the game

You are not there. That's what the test simulates, so it's the one rule: sit on your hands. Answer nothing. Every hint you give is a hole the real day will find. Take notes instead — every hesitation is a finding, and findings are gifts.

The 45-minute script

1. Setup (5 min). Pick a calm weekend morning. Say what it is: "If something happened to me tomorrow, I want to know you'd be okay. Pretend I'm not here." Then give her only what she'd really have — the envelope, or nothing but her memory of "there's a plan somewhere".
2. Discovery (10 min). Can she find the plan at all? Where does she look first? If she can't find it without you, nothing else matters — that's finding #1 and the test can stop here, kindly.
3. Access (10 min). Can she open it? Does she know the password — actually type-it-in know it, not "I think so"? (Careful with hardware that wipes after failed attempts: rehearse THAT one verbally.)
4. Orientation (10 min). Inside the plan: does she know what to do first, whom to call, what not to touch? Watch where she scrolls lost.
5. One real task (10 min). Pick one: "find the insurance policy", "find who helps with the Bitcoin and how you'd check it's really him". Doing beats reading.

Afterwards

• Record each check as done / not sure / couldn't in the app — with notes, but never write secrets into the notes (we had to burn a worksheet once; learn from us).
• Fix the top two findings that week. Not all of them — the top two. Then it actually happens.
• Repeat once a year, or after any big change (new wallet, new home, new person). The app reminds you when it's been too long.

What good looks like

Not perfection — calm. She found it, opened it, knew whom to call and what to leave alone. If the test ends with "that was easier than I feared", you've given each other the real gift: the promise, kept in advance.