All In Good Order - Make Things Easy for Everyone

Creating and communicating an Advance Directive and appointing a Healthcare Agent are the most important tasks you should undertake to increase the likelihood of a GoodEnding. But, there’s more you should do. LegalTemplates lays things out nicely in a simple chart 9 End of Life Documents Everyone Needs. The chart also details who’s involved in what.

BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger’s A Beginner’s Guide to the End contains, as the subtitle states, “Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death”. It’s the best single end-of-life resource we have found. There’s quite a bit of overlap between GoodEnding and the Beginner’s Guide, but the Guide goes into considerable detail on a wide range of topics. We especially recommend the “Resources” appendix. It is organized thematically and contains an extensive list of organizations, websites, literature, etc. for patients and caregivers.

Sallie Tisdale and Jeanna Annen Moyer, in Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them), recommend making a “death plan”. Sallie writes that one should "make a death plan, because we can - for our own peace of mind, and as an act of compassion for the people nearest to us who will be left, quite literally, holding things.” As Sallie and Jeanna point out, one should consider what comes after one’s passing. Who will pick up the pieces and how will they go about it? Farewelling provides a comprehensive end-of-life planning checklist which you can download for free. At the very least, one should:

Create a Will and appoint an Executor. (If you have gotten this far, you have probably already done this.)
Appoint a guardian for any non-adult children, either in your will or separately.
Create a Durable Power of Attorney to designate someone to act for you on financial and other matters in the event you are incapacitated.
Create a guide to assist your attorney and/or executor so he/she can locate critical documents, knows whom to contact, what bills to pay, which accounts to close, etc. Especially be aware that services for which you have set up automatic payments by direct debit, such as your cell phone, cable TV and insurance, will continue indefinitely until someone cancels them! You can download an Excel template for compiling all your information here.
Manage your future digital life. Unless actions are taken, our digital lives may live on, not necessarily in the way we would like. You probably want a loved one to be able to access your digital photos and certain important documents. And you might want to arrange for designated recipients to receive a personal email after you are gone. However, you certainly do not want social media apps generating a “Do you know this person?” complete with your picture, after you are gone.

Click on the images below for guidance and tools that can help you leave things in good order.