If an emergency happens, and time is of the essence, would your spouse or your loved ones know where to find your important paperwork? Do you even have one central place where all of your critical information is together? If your essential info is all on paper, do you have accessible files that are neatly organized, or would your relatives need to sift through mountains of paper or scraps of notes to figure out how you’ve arranged your affairs? Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and get organized before they get overwhelmed. You can start by reading an article by Thomas Heath in The Washington Post Here.

Of course, it’s critical that your important info is kept up-to-date and complete. For those of you who are willing to go beyond paper, there are multiple software programs now on the market that can arrange your essentials, and prompt you for missing info, so that your loved ones will find everything they need with the click of a keyboard. For a sampling of the software, Read Here.  Finally, for those of you starting from scratch (is it possible you still don’t have a will?), take a look at John Schwartz’s piece on finally getting to drafting a will, or better yet, learn some lessons from recently published book, This is the Year I Put My Financial Life in Order.