Getting Your Affairs in Order: The Complete Checklist
"Getting your affairs in order" sounds like something you do in a lawyer's office at eighty. In practice it's simpler and more urgent than that: it means that one person you trust could find everything that matters — your accounts, your passwords, your documents, your wishes — without guessing, digging, or hiring anyone.
Most families can't. Not because anyone was careless, but because modern life is scattered across dozens of logins, a phone with a passcode, and paperwork in four different drawers. When something happens — a death, a hospital stay, even a bad accident — the family isn't just grieving. They're locked out.
This checklist is the fix. It's organized around the three "doors" your family would need to open: your digital life, your money and documents, and your wishes. Work through it in an afternoon, or start with the 30-minute version at the end. No legal jargon, and nothing here requires a lawyer to begin.
Door 1 — Your digital life
This is the door families get stuck at first, and hardest. A locked phone can take a court order to open — and even then, Apple and Google won't hand over accounts without the right legal paperwork unless you set things up in advance.
- Phone passcode — written down, stored with your important papers (not taped to the phone).
- Password manager master password — the one password that unlocks all the others. If you don't use a password manager, list your top 10 logins: email, banking, phone carrier, utilities.
- Primary email password — email is the master key to everything else (password resets go there).
- Apple Legacy Contact set — takes 3 minutes in Settings, and it's the official way your family gets your photos and iCloud data. (Apple's official instructions)
- Google Inactive Account Manager set — the Google equivalent. (Google's official instructions)
- Two-factor backup codes — printed. If your phone is the second factor and the phone is locked, 2FA locks your family out twice.
- List of subscriptions and auto-payments — streaming, insurance drafts, storage units, anything that quietly charges a card every month.
- Social media accounts — listed, with a note on what you'd want done with them (memorialized, deleted, left alone).
Door 2 — Money and documents
Your family doesn't need the account balances. They need to know what exists and where it lives. Unclaimed-property offices in the U.S. are holding billions of dollars largely because families never knew an account existed.
- Bank accounts — institution and account type for each (checking, savings, CDs).
- Retirement accounts — 401(k)s from every old employer, IRAs, pensions. These are the ones that get lost.
- Investment accounts — brokerages, stock plans, crypto (with access notes).
- Life insurance policies — insurer, policy number, and where the physical policy is. A policy nobody knows about pays nobody.
- Other insurance — health, home, auto, long-term care.
- Property — deeds, titles, mortgage details, and where the originals are.
- Debts — mortgage, cards, loans. Families need the full picture, not a surprise.
- Will and/or trust — its location, and your attorney's name if you have one. (A checklist like this is not a will — see the FAQ below.)
- Power of attorney and advance directive / living will — these matter while you're alive, in a hospital scenario. Location + who holds copies.
- Vital records — birth certificates, marriage certificate, Social Security cards, military discharge papers (needed for benefits).
- Safe deposit box or home safe — where it is, where the key is, who has access.
- Recent tax return location — the map to almost every financial account you own.
Door 3 — Your wishes and your people
- Care wishes — what you'd want (and not want) if you couldn't speak for yourself. Formalize with an advance directive; write the plain-English version here.
- Funeral or memorial preferences — burial vs. cremation, tone, anything pre-paid. Families fight hardest over what was never said.
- The call list — who to notify: family, closest friends, your attorney, financial advisor, employer's HR (there may be benefits), and the Social Security Administration (how SSA is notified).
- Pet care plan — who takes them, vet info, any money set aside.
- Personal messages — optional, and the part families keep forever.
- Tell one person where all of this lives. The best-organized file in the world is worthless if nobody knows it exists.
The 30-minute version (start here if the list feels heavy)
Five items cover the worst of it. Do these today:
- Write down your phone passcode and email password; seal them with your important papers.
- Set your Apple Legacy Contact or Google Inactive Account Manager (3 minutes each).
- List every bank and retirement account — institution names only.
- Write where your will, deed, and insurance policies physically are.
- Tell one person where that piece of paper lives.
Ways to organize it all — an honest comparison
I researched every approach people actually use for this (including competitors of my own product — prices checked July 2026):
| Approach | Cost | Good | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY binder (printables + office-store binder) | $15–30 | Cheapest; fully custom | You're the project manager — most DIY binders stall half-finished |
| Fill-in planner books (Amazon, e.g. Clever Fox) | $8–25 | Guided; cheap; ships fast | Generic prompts; thin paper; little coverage of digital accounts |
| The Nokbox (folder system) | $69–179 | Very thorough physical filing system | A weekend-sized project; bulkier than most families need |
| Digital vaults / apps | Free–$100/yr | Easy to update; shareable | It's another login your family has to know about — the lockout problem, again |
| In Case Anything Happens (this site — printed guided planner) | $59, or $89 for the two-book couples set | Guided like a book, covers the digital door in depth, physical so there's nothing to log into | One evening of honest writing — it doesn't fill itself in |
Yes, I sell one of these. The comparison is honest anyway — for some families a $15 DIY binder is genuinely the right answer. The point is to pick one and finish it.
Common questions
Is this the same as a will?
No. A will is a legal document that says who gets what; only a will (or trust) does that job — our estate planning checklist covers those documents one by one. A checklist or planner is the practical layer — where things are, how to get in, who to call. Families need both. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
What should an end-of-life planner include?
Everything above: digital access, the money-and-documents map, and your wishes. If a planner you're considering skips the digital section, it was written for a world before smartphones — that's now the door families get stuck at first.
Where should I keep it?
Somewhere findable but not open: a fireproof pouch, a desk drawer, a home safe (with the combination shared), or a safe deposit box only if someone else has access. Then tell one person. "Findable by family, not by a burglar" is the standard. (If you're building a physical system, the family emergency binder checklist is the storage-and-categories version of this page.)
How often should I update it?
Once a year, plus after any big life event — a move, a new account, a marriage, a diagnosis. Put a recurring reminder on your birthday month; it's the easiest date to remember.