Nobody particularly enjoys thinking about what happens after they die. Wills, funeral plans and final wishes tend to live in the category of Things We’ll Get Around To Eventually – somewhere between sorting the junk drawer and finally organising the thousands of photos sitting on our phones.
But a new digital trend is taking a different approach: lifemaxxing.
The term, coined by the founders of Australian digital legacy platform My TAP (aka My Time And Place), describes the idea of using technology to extend a person’s wishes, memories and stories beyond their lifetime. And while it sounds a little futuristic, the motivation behind it is surprisingly old-fashioned: avoiding family arguments.
Because when a loved one dies, the biggest disagreements aren’t always about money.
Sometimes they’re about Mum’s engagement ring. Dad’s favourite watch. A box of old photographs. Who gets the handwritten letters. Whether Nan really wanted a traditional funeral. Or what she would have wanted her grandchildren to know.
These are the kinds of questions that a traditional Will often doesn’t answer.
According to My TAP founders Isla George and Lisa Wendland, that uncertainty can leave grieving families trying to piece together someone’s wishes while they’re already dealing with the emotional shock of losing them.
And that’s where the idea of digital legacy planning comes in.
Your Will doesn’t tell the whole story
A Will is designed to deal with the legal side of death: who receives your assets and how your estate should be handled.
But life is messier – and much more sentimental – than a legal document.
You can specify who gets your house without explaining why you always wanted your granddaughter to have your jewellery. You can leave your possessions to your children without explaining which family photographs matter most to you. And you can make funeral arrangements without leaving behind the stories, memories and messages that make those decisions feel personal.
My TAP® essentially creates a digital home for those details.
The Australian-developed platform allows users to record everything from final wishes and funeral arrangements to life stories, cherished memories, sentimental possessions and important documents. Users can also leave written, audio and video messages for their loved ones.
The idea isn’t to replace a Will. Instead, it sits alongside it, filling in the emotional and personal gaps that legal paperwork can’t.
Why sentimental possessions can cause surprisingly big fights
There’s a strange thing about grief: sometimes the objects that cause the most tension aren’t worth much money at all.
A piece of jewellery might be inexpensive but carry decades of family history. A handwritten recipe might be worth nothing financially but mean everything to one particular child. A collection of photographs might look like clutter to one person and an irreplaceable record of family history to another.
Without knowing what the person actually wanted, everyone is left interpreting the situation for themselves.
And, as George points out, that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is behaving badly. Often, everyone genuinely believes they’re doing the right thing.
That’s what makes these disagreements so difficult.
The problem isn’t always greed. It’s uncertainty.
The tech is actually the easy part
Perhaps the most interesting thing about lifemaxxing isn’t the technology itself. It’s the conversation it forces us to have.
We’re increasingly comfortable documenting our lives digitally. We store our photos in the cloud, keep our memories on social media and record voice notes for practically everything. Yet we’re still surprisingly reluctant to document what we want to happen to those memories when we’re no longer around.
My TAP takes that same digital-first approach and applies it to end-of-life planning.
The platform also allows people to update their wishes over time, which matters because what you want at 30 probably isn’t what you’ll want at 60.
That flexibility makes the idea feel less like filling out a grim form about your own mortality and more like creating a living record of the things that matter to you.
The uncomfortable conversation worth having
Of course, no app can make talking about death comfortable. But perhaps that’s not the point.
The bigger shift behind lifemaxxing is the idea that planning for the end of your life doesn’t have to be about expecting the worst. It can simply be about making life easier for the people you love.
Think of it as the ultimate form of leaving instructions.
Tell your family what you want. Explain why certain things matter. Record the stories you don’t want forgotten. Say the things you might not get another chance to say.
Then, when the time eventually comes, your family doesn’t have to guess.
As George puts it, “One honest conversation today can save years of heartbreak tomorrow.”
It’s not the most glamorous use of technology we’ll see this year. But it might just be one of the most thoughtful.
And if lifemaxxing catches on, perhaps the next piece of tech you leave behind won’t just be your phone, laptop or digital photo library.
It’ll be a much clearer idea of who you were – and what mattered to you.
