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Put Your Life in Order — An organized kitchen table with a household binder, labeled folders without readable text, keys, phone, and emergency information arranged calmly.
Book 12 of the series

Put Your Life in Order

A Calm Guide to Documents, Passwords, Insurance, Wishes, and the Information Your Family May Need

One page at a time, make your affairs findable by the people who would need to find them.

Three ways to have it

  • Paperback$13.99Not yet printable

    5.5 × 8.5 in, 122 pages, posted to you. ISBN not yet issued

  • Ebook$4.99

    EPUB, reads on any e-reader, phone or tablet. ISBN 979-8-90623-709-5

  • Audiobook$9.99

    About 2h 41m, narrated in full. ISBN 979-8-90623-710-1

Read the opening free Prices and delivery

What it is for

For adults over 60 who keep meaning to write down where everything is and want a calm way to finally do it.

What it will not do

It is not legal, tax, or insurance advice and cannot tell you what a valid will or directive requires where you live, so anything binding needs a professional licensed in your area.

What this guide is about

Dolores Reyes drove a city bus for thirty-one years and always carried the map, because detours happen and a map does not panic. She was seventy-one before she noticed she had never written down where anything in her own life was kept. It was all in her head, and it worked beautifully right up until her sister two states away had a fall.

This is a calm guide to getting your affairs in order: documents, money, insurance, medical wishes, passwords, and what your family would need on a day you cannot be asked. About 25,000 words, ten illustrated chapters, plain language.

You begin with a one-page map of what exists and roughly where, which takes an afternoon and turns a shapeless dread into a finite list. Then corner by corner: identity and legal papers, bills and obligations, insurance and property, a one-page medical summary and your wishes, passwords and digital life, and a household binder a stranger could follow.

The back is where the work gets done. A 30-day plan of one small task a day, a document inventory worksheet, a Start Here page, scripts for asking someone to be your proxy and for updating a beneficiary, a support circle page, a quick-reference card, a glossary, and plain-language sources.

Nothing here is legal, tax, or insurance advice. Wills, powers of attorney, directives, and trusts are legal instruments whose rules differ by place and change over time, so this book stays on durable ground and sends you to an attorney licensed where you live before you sign anything.

Nothing here is urgent in the frightening sense. You are not behind. This is a kindness done slowly, on ordinary afternoons.

Inside the book

Every chapter, with the sentence it opens on.

The chapters

  1. The Essential Information MapDolores Reyes drove a city bus for thirty-one years, and she'll tell you the secret to the job was the same every single morning: you don't memorize the route, you carry the map.
  2. Identity and Legal DocumentsThe phone call Nadia Haddad remembers came from a hospital, about her husband, and the first thing they asked her was whether she was authorized to make decisions for him.
  3. Money, Bills, and Ongoing ObligationsWalt Kowalski, seventy-eight, is not a complicated man, and he'd be the first to say his money isn't complicated either.
  4. Insurance and PropertyPriya Anand keeps working at sixty-three, partly because she likes it and partly because she came to this country at forty with two suitcases and a determination never to be caught unprepared again.
  5. Medical Information and WishesSamuel Okafor is eighty and has, in his words, "a body that files a lot of paperwork." Three specialists, a small pharmacy's worth of pills, a heart that needs watching, and a hip that already got replaced.
  6. Passwords and Digital LifeEllen Marsh, sixty-nine, thought she had this one handled.
  7. The Household Continuity BinderAugust Lindqvist, seventy-four, everyone calls him Gus, spent his career as the person who kept the plant running, and he thinks about his household the way he thought about the plant: it needs an operations manual so it doesn't stop when one person's out sick.
  8. Review, Share, and MaintainCarol Ferraro, sixty-seven, has what she calls "a modern family," two children from her first marriage, a stepson from her second, a former husband still in the picture for the grandchildren's sake, and a current husband whose own kids live across the country.
  9. Emergency Access Without Sacrificing PrivacyTheo Nakamura, seventy-two, lives alone by choice and likes it that way.
  10. A Yearly Life-Administration ReviewJoan Whitfield, seventy-six, is a gardener, and she'll tell you that's the whole secret to keeping your affairs in order: "Nobody plants a garden once and walks away expecting it to look nice in five years.

And at the back

  • When It Feels Hard: Troubleshooting the Real Barriers
  • Common Myths, Gently Corrected
  • Your 30-Day Plan
  • Worksheets, Scripts, and Reusable Frames
  • Quick-Reference Card
  • A Small Glossary
  • Sources and Further Reading
  • A Closing Word
  • About the Series
  • About the Author

The thirty days

Here is the whole book turned into one small action a day. Each day asks for one document, one decision, or one short conversation, nothing that needs a free weekend or a professional standing by. Most days take fifteen to thirty minutes. Some take five.

  1. Get a folder or box and label it "Household." Put nothing in it yet. You've made the home.
  2. On one sheet, write the six map headings, People, Money, Legal, Insurance & Property, Medical, Digital, and fill in only what you know from memory. Fifteen minutes, no looking anything up.
  3. Under "People," finish the contact list: family to call, your doctor, anyone who already helps with something. Add phone numbers.
  4. Write down your primary email address and answer one question honestly in the margin: if you lost your password today, do you know how you'd get back in? If not, mark it to fix.
  5. Do the four-row legal check: identity papers, power of attorney, health-care proxy, will. Beside each write "have it," "don't have it," or "not sure." Don't fix anything; just get the truth on paper.
  6. Locate your identity documents, birth certificate, passport, government ID, and note where each original lives. Move any that are dangerously scattered into one sensible spot.
  7. Rest and look. Read back over your map so far. Notice what's already clearer than it was a week ago. Add any lines that come to mind. This is a review day; enjoy it.
  8. List your income sources, the "In" side, source and rough date each arrives. For most people this is a short, quick list.
  9. Start the "Out" side: write your essential recurring bills, housing, utilities, insurance, taxes, loans, and beside each note how it's paid: auto, card, or paper.
  10. Hunt the small automatic charges. Look at a recent bank or card statement and list every subscription and recurring debit. Cancel one you don't use. Small, satisfying, and often saves real money.
  11. Make your account map: which bank, which retirement or pension, roughly where each lives. Names and locations only, no numbers on this page.
  12. The big one, gentle version: list which of your accounts might have a beneficiary form, retirement, pension, life insurance. Just list them. You'll check the names on Day 20.
  13. Begin the insurance inventory table, Type, Company, Policy number, Contact, and fill in every policy you can name from memory.
  14. Second review day. Walk through your folder. Two weeks in, you likely have a map, a money picture, and the start of an insurance list. Notice how the pile shrank. Rest.
  15. Finish the insurance table by gathering the policy numbers you left blank, checking the drawer where mail lands and any benefits paperwork from past jobs.
  16. Make the property list: real estate, vehicles, and any genuinely valuable or meaningful items, with a note on where the proof of ownership lives.
  17. Add the "notes" column to your property list, who a meaningful item is promised to, any co-ownership, any loan. Head off a future misunderstanding with a sentence.
  18. Build the one-page medical summary: conditions, medications and doses, allergies, doctors, pharmacy, devices. Date it at the top.
  19. Put a copy of the medical page where responders look, the refrigerator is traditional, and another in your wallet or bag. This one helps at your very next appointment.
  20. Beneficiary day. Pick up the phone or log in and check the named beneficiary on your most important account, often a life insurance policy or retirement account. Confirm it's still who you'd choose. Fix or note as needed.
  21. Think about your health-care proxy: who would you want speaking for you if you couldn't? Write the name down. You'll ask them on Day 25.
  22. Choose a password manager, with help if you'd like it, and set it up with one strong master password. If this is your wall, book a helper for this week instead and use today to make the appointment.
  23. Move your five most important accounts into the manager, email first, and make sure each has a strong, unique password and a recovery method you actually control.
  24. Write your master password once, on paper, seal it in a dated envelope, and decide where it will live securely. Note in your folder that a password manager exists.
  25. Have the proxy conversation. Ask the person from Day 21 if they'd be willing, and tell them, plainly, what matters to you. It's shorter and lighter than the dread promised.
  26. Build the binder shell: get dividers, make the tabs, and write a first draft of the start-here page, the one addressed to a stressed, unfamiliar helper.
  27. File what you've made into the binder tabs. Where a section isn't done, insert a single sheet naming what's missing. The gaps become a short to-do list.
  28. Tell one trusted person three things: that your binder exists, roughly where it is, and how the secure parts could be reached in a real emergency. Connect the smoke alarm to its battery.
  29. Sort your information into the three access tiers, open and fast, trusted and locked, deepest and sealed, and adjust where anything is over- or under-protected.
  30. Set your yearly review anchor, a birthday, a season, and write it in the front of your binder along with the life events that should trigger an early review. Then close the binder and notice: it's done, and it's built to stay done. Well done. Genuinely.

Pages from this book

Real pages, at the size they print. In the paperback these are black and white; the cover keeps its colour.

An older adult setting up a secure password manager and recovery plan with a trusted contact, no readable credentials.
An older adult setting up a secure password manager and recovery plan with a trusted contact, no readable credentials.
A calm thirty-day progression as four weekly clusters and two review days, simple shapes, no readable text.
A calm thirty-day progression as four weekly clusters and two review days, simple shapes, no readable text.
Concentric support rings — self, trusted people, community, professionals — shown through people and symbols, no words.
Concentric support rings — self, trusted people, community, professionals — shown through people and symbols, no words.
A four-stage decision path shown as visual stations with a calm older adult moving through them, no words.
A four-stage decision path shown as visual stations with a calm older adult moving through them, no words.

Words this book makes plain

Advance directive
An umbrella term for documents recording your wishes about medical care for a time when you can't speak for yourself. Often includes naming a decision-maker and stating preferences about treatment. The specific forms and names differ by location.
Beneficiary
The person or organization named to receive money or property directly from a particular account or policy, such as life insurance or a retirement account. The named beneficiary usually receives that money regardless of what your will says, which is why keeping these designations current matters so much.
Continuity binder
This book's name for a single organized place, physical or partly digital, that lets a trusted person keep your household running or wind it down. Also sometimes called a "when I'm gone" file, though it's just as useful during a hospital stay or long absence.
Directive
Shorthand for an advance directive or the treatment-preference part of one. See advance directive.
Estate
Everything you own and owe at the time of your death, taken together. Having an "estate" doesn't mean being wealthy; nearly everyone has one, however modest.
Executor
The person named in a will to carry out its instructions, gather what you owned, settle debts, and distribute the rest. Called different things in different places. It's more administrative chore than honor, and it's a real job.
Fiduciary
A person or organization with a legal duty to act in your best interest, not their own. Some professionals can serve as a paid, trustworthy stand-in for family roles when no suitable relative is available.
Health-care proxy
A document naming the person authorized to make medical decisions for you if you can't. Also called a medical power of attorney or health-care agent, depending on where you live.
Living will
A written statement of your wishes about medical treatment in certain serious situations. Overlaps with "advance directive"; the terminology and legal weight vary by place.
Password manager
A single, well-protected program that stores all your other passwords, so you only need to remember one strong master password. Recommended by security professionals as far safer than reusing passwords or keeping them on paper by the phone.
Power of attorney
A document in which you authorize someone to act for you in financial or legal matters. There are different kinds, some effective immediately, some only if you lose capacity, some designed to survive that loss and some not. Which you want is a question for an attorney where you live.
Probate
The legal process, in many places, for settling an estate after death, proving the will, paying debts, and distributing what remains. It can be slower and more public without good planning; the details differ sharply by location.
Recovery method
The way you prove it's you and regain entry to an online account when a password alone isn't enough, often a code sent to a phone or email, or a saved backup code. Keeping these current is what prevents being locked out of your own accounts.
Trust
A legal arrangement in which property is held and managed under specific terms, sometimes used to pass things to others outside of probate. Whether a trust suits you is a genuine attorney question; it's not necessary for everyone and it isn't only for the wealthy.
Two-step verification
A security measure requiring a second proof of identity beyond your password. Good protection, and the reason recovery methods must be kept up to date.

The words to use

Copy these out, print them, or keep them in a note on your phone. They are yours to use.

The Document Inventory Worksheet

This is the heart of the whole book: one place that records what you have and where it is, without holding the secrets themselves. Copy the columns below and make a row for each item. Keep it in the front of your binder, and remember the golden rule, this page records where, never account numbers or passwords.

| Item | Do I have it? | Where is it kept? | Who has a copy / who to contact | Last checked | |---|---|---|---|---|

Suggested rows to work through, add or remove to match your life:

  • Birth certificate
  • Passport
  • Government identity document
  • Marriage certificate / divorce papers / spouse's death certificate
  • Citizenship or residency papers
  • Will
  • Power of attorney (financial)
  • Health-care proxy / medical power of attorney
  • Advance directive / living will
  • Deed or lease for your home
  • Vehicle title(s)
  • Bank account map (which banks, not numbers)
  • Retirement account / pension paperwork
  • Life insurance policy
  • Home / property insurance policy
  • Vehicle insurance policy
  • Health coverage details
  • One-page medical summary
  • Password manager (exists? where's the master-password arrangement?)
  • Tax records (recent years)
  • Safe or lockbox (where, and how access is arranged)

When a row's "Where is it kept?" is blank or says "not sure," that's not a failure, it's your next task, quietly identified. Fill the sheet in over days, not minutes.

The "Start Here" Page

If you're reading this, something has happened and you're stepping in to help. Thank you, and take a breath, everything you need is here and organized.
> First call: [name and number of your most trusted person].
> This binder is organized by the tabs. The most time-sensitive sections are Medical (in case of a hospital) and Money (so important automatic bills don't lapse).
> The secure parts, passwords and the digital vault, are not loose in this binder. They can be reached by [named person] through [the sealed envelope in the safe / my attorney / the agreed arrangement].
> Please go at your own pace. Nothing here is a trap, and nothing is more urgent than your own steadiness. I planned this so it would be easier for you. That was the whole point.

This single sheet lives at the very front of your binder, written for a person who is stressed, unfamiliar with your affairs, and trying to help. Copy this frame and make it yours:

Script: Asking Someone to Be Your Proxy

"I'm getting some things in order, and I'd like to ask you something. If I were ever very sick and couldn't speak for myself, I'd want you to be the person who decides for me. It matters to me that it's you, because I trust your judgment. Would you be willing? And can I tell you a little about what I'd want, so you're not guessing?"

Said over coffee, not in a crisis. Adjust to your own voice:

Then say, plainly, what a good outcome looks like to you and what you'd fear most, and end with the sentence that matters most: "If the situation doesn't match anything we've discussed, I trust you to decide. I won't be second-guessing you." That single permission lifts an enormous weight off the person you name.

Script: Telling Family About a Hard Decision

"I want you to hear one of my decisions from me, not from a lawyer later. I've asked [name] to handle the practical side of my estate. That's not about who I love more; it's about who lives nearby and is good with this kind of paperwork, and honestly it's more chore than honor. I wanted you to know now, so it's not a shock later, and so that if you have feelings about it, we can talk here, at this table, while I'm around to explain."

When you've chosen something that could sting, one child as executor, an unequal arrangement, use surprise-prevention, not persuasion:

Then stop, and listen. You're not seeking agreement. You're removing the surprise that turns a decision into a wound.

Script: Calling to Update a Beneficiary

"Hello, I'd like to review and update the beneficiary on my policy. Can you tell me who is currently named, and then help me change it? I'd also like to know whether the change takes effect right away and whether you'll send me written confirmation."

Short and businesslike, for the phone call people dread and finish gladly:

Ask for that written confirmation every time, and file it. A beneficiary change you can't prove is a beneficiary change you can't rely on.

Script: Asking for Help With the Digital Part

"There's one part of getting organized I'd like a hand with. I want to set up a password manager and make sure I could get back into my important accounts if I lost my phone. It's about an hour of work, and I'd rather do it once, properly, with someone who knows this stuff, than fumble it alone. Could you sit with me while I set it up? I want to be the one who runs it afterward, I just need help getting it going."

For when the online chapter is your wall, said to a trusted, tech-comfortable person:

Asking is not failing. It's the same good sense that sends you to an electrician for the wiring.

The Support Circle Worksheet

Getting your affairs in order is not a solo act, even for the most independent among us, and this worksheet helps you see, on one page, who's around you and for what. Draw four rings, one inside the next, and place names in each.

The center: you. Your information, your wishes, your authority. Everything radiates from here, and nothing overrides your judgment while you can exercise it.

The first ring: your trusted few. The one, two, or three people who'd step in first, your proxy, your executor, the key-holder who knows where things are. Write their names, and beside each, the role they hold and what they know. If a ring role is empty, a proxy you haven't named, a key-holder you haven't chosen, that blank is one of your most important next decisions.

The second ring: your wider circle. Family and friends who'd be notified or involved but aren't the first responders, the relatives to call, the neighbor with a spare key, the friend who knows your wishes. They provide backup and continuity.

The third ring: your professionals and resources. Your attorney, insurance agent, doctor, financial contact, and community resources like a senior center, legal aid, or a place of worship. These are the people and organizations you route the specialized questions to, the ones this book keeps telling you to consult for anything specific to your situation and your location.

Fill in every ring you can. Two things will jump out: the roles you've left unfilled, which become your priorities, and, for many readers, a reassuring reminder that more support exists around you than the lonely-feeling task suggested. If your inner rings feel thin, that's exactly the signal to consider a professional for the trusted roles, an attorney or fiduciary can stand in the first ring for people who need it. No one has to do this alone, and this page proves it on paper.

Questions worth asking before you buy

Who is Put Your Life in Order for?
For adults over 60 who keep meaning to write down where everything is and want a calm way to finally do it.
What does it not do?
It is not legal, tax, or insurance advice and cannot tell you what a valid will or directive requires where you live, so anything binding needs a professional licensed in your area.
How long is it?
About 25,600 words across 10 chapters, with 13 full-page illustrations. In paperback that is about 122 pages. The audiobook runs about 2h 41m.
Can I read some of it first?
Yes. The foreword and the whole introduction are on this site, free, with nothing to sign up for.
What languages is it in?
The books exist in five: English, German, Spanish, French and Dutch, each localised properly — its own illustrations with the labels drawn in that language, and its own country's institutions named in the text. This shop can sell you the English and the Spanish today; the other three are finished books waiting on their paperwork.
What does the complete set include?
All thirty guides in print, in one box, and the ebook and the audiobook of every one of them at no extra charge.

Free to read

What is in it, chapter by chapter

All 10 chapters: what each one opens on, the questions it answers, and the one small thing to do when you have finished it. About 25,600 words in the book itself.

Every chapter

Where it sends you next

The book’s own sources, printed here in full.

This book gives you durable principles and practical habits, not the specific law, figures, or product recommendations that change by place and over time. That's a deliberate choice, and it shapes how to think about sources.

For anything specific to your situation, go to primary, local, and current sources rather than any general book, this one included:

  • A licensed estate-planning or elder-law attorney in your state, province, or country, for wills, powers of attorney, directives, trusts, and how they interact with local law. This is the single most valuable source for the legal core of this book.
  • A licensed insurance professional, for what your policies actually cover, how beneficiary designations work, and whether your coverage fits your life.
  • Your own doctors, for medical information and for making advance directives medically sound.
  • A reputable, security-focused source or a trusted technology helper, for setting up a password manager and recovery plan safely.
  • Your local government offices and courts, for the actual current rules and forms where you live, which are the only versions that count.
  • Nonprofit and community resources: legal aid organizations, senior centers, bar association referral services, and area agencies on aging often provide free or low-cost guidance and can point you to trustworthy local help.

Books and general guides, again including this one, are best used to understand the ideas, prepare your questions, and organize your thinking before you consult those primary sources. They should never be the final word on a legal, tax, insurance, or medical specific.

A Note on Review. Because this subject touches law, money, medical wishes, and online security, the material here was shaped with input from an estate-planning attorney, an insurance professional, and someone who works in everyday cybersecurity, and the cautions in this book reflect that review. Even so, laws and rules differ by jurisdiction and change over time, and no book can account for your particular circumstances. Time-sensitive details, current legal requirements, forms, and thresholds, should be verified near the time you act, with a qualified professional licensed where you live. Where this book seems to conflict with advice from such a professional about your own situation, follow the professional.

This book in other languages

En español

The particulars

SeriesPractical Guides for Life After 60, book 12 of the series
ImprintThe Greenlight Guides Editorial Team
Length25,600 words, 10 chapters
Extentabout 122 pages (estimated from the manuscript, not a proof)
Size5.5 × 8.5 in (140 × 216 mm)
Illustrations13, full-page illustrations
Listening time2h 41m
ISBN, ebook979-8-90623-709-5
ISBN, audiobook979-8-90623-710-1
ISBN, paperbacknot yet issued
LanguageEnglish (en-US)

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