Easy, Fast Estate Planning Tasks You Can Do In Under 10 Minutes
“Estate Planning” has a reputation for being complex, time-consuming, and expensive. While it can be if you have lots of money, complicated relationships, or lots of tax concerns, for us mere mortals, it’s likely easier than you think.
Many estate or end-of-life planning tasks are things you should be doing anyway, and they’ll benefit you (and your people) both in life and after your death.
Here are 5 easy estate planning tasks you can complete (or get a start on) in under 10 minutes
While some of these tasks will still be incomplete after only 10 minutes, taking a first step will put you in a better position than you were in before.
The journey of a thousand miles and all that.
Start an Advanced Care Directive
What medical choices do you want to be made if you’re incapacitated? Who do you want to make decisions on your behalf? An Advanced Care Directive (ACD) will document your desires.
The terminology for this document varies by state. Your state may call it an advanced care directive, a living will, an appointment of health care agent, or a nomination of health care proxies (I’m using ‘ACD’ as an umbrella term for them all).
While the specific form and terminology will vary, you’re looking for two things:
- A place to document your health care choices and preferences (for example, whether or not you want CPR or a feeding tube). Many forms also have a narrative section where you can document your values or what’s important to you. This information will help guide your decision-makers if you are incapacitated and can’t speak for yourself (this is often, but not always, called the ‘living will’).
- A document appointing who you want to act and make choices on your behalf if you are incapacitated (your health care agent).
In some places, these are two separate documents. In other places, it’s in one document. Where I am in California, an ‘Advanced Care Directive’ is the name for a single document that contains both the living will and the appointment of a health care proxy.
Completing your ACD will take more than 10 minutes, but it’s more than enough time for the first step: Obtain the paperwork.
To Do: Obtain the ACD paperwork
There are countless ways to get ACD paperwork. My 2 favorite options:
- Contact your healthcare provider or health insurer. Most have versions of the forms for your use. Many make their forms available on their website, accessible to even non-members
- Freewill has (free) advance care directive/living will paperwork for all 50 states
Add beneficiaries to investment and retirement accounts
Not all of your assets have to pass via a will.
If you’ve named a beneficiary on an investment or retirement account, after your death, those assets will go directly to the beneficiary without having to go through probate.
To Do: Add beneficiaries
Contact the firm where your investment or retirement accounts are held. They can help you name a beneficiary on your account(s).
Instructions for two biggies:
To Do: While you’re in a beneficiary state of mind (part 1)
If you’ve already set up beneficiaries on your accounts, take a few moments to review them. Do you still want that person to be your beneficiary? Does the information need to be updated?
Do they know they are a beneficiary? In some cases, the beneficiary is responsible for contacting the firm to get the money after your death.
To Do: While you’re in a beneficiary state of mind (part 2)
While you’re in a beneficiary state of mind, review the beneficiaries for your life insurance policy.
Is the beneficiary still the right person? Does it need to be updated?
Spend Time Decluttering
Not every estate planning task has to feel like estate planning.
Yes, decluttering is estate planning. Everything you bring into your home (or save on your computer) will one day have to be removed by someone. You, your spouse, your people.
You are in the best position to know (and get rid of) things you don’t care about. Throw, recycle, delete, or sell stuff you no longer need or want.
Added bonus: less clutter in your life is beneficial to your state of mind today.
To Do: Declutter
Spend 10 minutes decluttering your real (or virtual) life.
Document your stuff
Consider how many services you subscribe to that someone will have to cancel someday. Will your someone know they exist or how to access them?
Do you want your someone to have to – while mourning your loss, while dealing with lawyers and funeral homes – also have to deal with resetting your Disney+ password so they can cancel your account?
Keep a list of services you subscribe to, your user names, and passwords.
Like with your ACD, documenting all your accounts and passwords will take more than 10 minutes. But it’s more than enough time to start a list. And once the list is started, it’s much easier to add to it later.
To Do: Decide where/how to document your stuff
Decide where and how you want to document your stuff:
If you are thinking of trying a digital option, I’ve created templates in Google Sheets and Notion you can use to get started.
If you aren’t sure where to keep this list, just pick an option and start. You can always change later on once you get a better idea of the information you are documenting.
Just make sure someone knows about this list and is able to access it. Keeping a perfect and up-to-date list in Evernote won’t do anyone much good if no one knows it exists or can’t access it.
Add a legacy contact
Dealing with your digital legacy is a huge undertaking – which only seems to be getting more complicated by the year. Setting up a legacy contact with the platforms that have made it an option is a great start.
Google, Apple, and Facebook all allow you to name a legacy contact who can access your accounts after your death and perform certain actions.
Each service has its own set-up process and rules about what your person can or can’t access or do. Review the service’s FAQs for more information.
Fun fact: Google’s service is actually an ‘inactive account manager.’ Google is so entwined in our lives, that they’ll assume you’re dead if you don’t access any of your Google stuff for the timeframe you set (usually around 3 months).
To Do: Set up a legacy contact
Pick the platform you use the most and set up a legacy contact.
