MANY of us put off planning for our end-of-life health needs as we think it is something for old age which is a long way off – but emergencies can happen at any time.

MANY people think of writing a will and preparing an estate plan as one and the same, but there is a crucial difference.

YOU are ahead of most people and have actually taken the time to address the problem and have written a will.

Well done – far too many people do not have wills prepared, whether they are avoiding the topic or just never quite get round to it as there is always tomorrow. Until there is not anymore.

MANY of us will use a Power of Attorney at some point in our lives – either acting for someone else or for ourselves. But it is important to understand what a Power of Attorney document actually creates legally, for both parties involved, and the fact there are different kinds with different implications.

NEW Year resolutions are made, and as we all know, often swiftly broken.

Why do we make them if we know we will set them aside so quickly? Usually, because they are unrealistic and require too much commitment to change too quickly.

PAPERWORK – a necessary evil whether in or private of business lives. We all have an increasing amount of documentation needed to navigate our daily lives, from vital one-offs like birth certificates and passports to the monthly credit card statement and utility bills. And with the advent of digital communication and storage, many of us find our essential documents as pdfs attached to emails out there in the ether somewhere, with an awkward hybrid of essential documents spread between our filing cabinet and the cloud.

People always say, “You can’t take it with you.” So everything you accumulate in this life has to stay here once you’re gone. That’s why many people trust an estate planning attorney to help them create a will wherein all of their belongs and assets are bequeathed to the people they love and care about in the event of their death. If, however, your loved one dies intestate – or without a will or estate plan of some sort – the estate will go into probate and you might be struggling to figure out what to do.

When you hear the words “estate planning” your mind probably goes immediately to will-writing. And that’s not an incorrect assumption, your will is one of the main components of your estate plan and a central focus of this important legal document. However, there is more involved in estate planning that just writing down a list of how your assets get distributed after your death. There are several other elements that go into a good estate plan and you’ll want to include all of them to have a fully comprehensive document that describes your wishes for your wealth and your care in the event of a worst-case scenario.

Your life isn’t one static trajectory, so why should your estate plan be? Outside of not writing a will or any advance directive at all, the most common error made in estate planning is the failure to periodically update legal directives as momentous events occur over the course of a lifetime. And, although your life may present you with circumstances that extend far beyond the following list, it may be useful to know that these are the life events that should prompt the consideration of a change to your estate plan.

Your estate is made up of everything you own—cash, investments, business interests, property, and all of your personal belongings—and, upon your death, those items will be bequeathed in some manner. An estate plan is your opportunity to prescribe that manner by dictating which and how much of your assets are passed to whom. The biggest aversion to estate planning is the fact that you have to look your own morbidity squarely in the face. Having come to the unavoidable conclusion that you will pass away at some point, it becomes a smart, albeit not always pleasant, decision to create an estate plan.

Unforeseen events, such as the diagnosis of a terminal illness or the occurrence of a catastrophic accident, happen all the time. And, it’s in those instances that a living will is indispensable. Whereas a last will and testament outlines the distribution of your assets upon your death, a living will documents your instructions to medical professionals in the event that you cannot communicate your wishes but are still alive.

Everyone needs a will. It really is that simple. Few of us like to think about dying but, as Benjamin Franklin noted, only death and taxes are certainties in our lives. And while we may want and expect a long life, the sad truth is there is simply no way of knowing when it is our turn to exit this world – a fact brought starkly home to basketball fans last month with the sudden death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, killed unexpectedly in a helicopter crash.