Creative Estate Organizers

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Excerpt from my presentation “10 Simple Lessons for Being Prepared”
Simple Lesson #8 Document Your Possessions
Part of what I do through my business, Creative Estate Organizers, is to teach new skills and new systems, and to have a plan and a place for everything vital for being prepared. One example to be prepared is to "document your possessions" in order to build a complete record of your real and personal property. Not only is this invaluable in order to file an insurance claim in the event of fire, burglary, or damage, but this is also helpful for wealth valuation and estate planning.
The easiest and fastest way to do this is to take digital pictures and store them on a CD. But in order to prepare a complete record of your possessions, I recommend using a home inventory program that includes information such as location, date of purchase, serial number, purchase price, and replacement value.
To help you document your possessions, a FREE home inventory software application is available through the Insurance Information Institute at http://www.knowyourstuff.org. After downloading the program files, the information is saved on your local hard drive and can be copied to a CD which should be stored off-site in a secure environment such as a safe deposit box or with a trustworthy family member. I also recommend assigning a beneficiary for your most valued possessions and include a copy with your will or trust documents.
The time investment is well worth the effort, should you ever be faced with filing an insurance claim, or for your family in the settling of an estate.
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Seven Steps to a Successful Estate Plan

Do you need an estate plan? For those with substantial assets, estate planning is essential to preserve and protect wealth for future generations and to minimize estate taxes. However, even if your net worth is more modest and death taxes are less of a concern, proper estate planning allows you to control the distribution of your property, ensure that those you select will care for your children, avoid unnecessary court proceedings and reduce the chances of family disputes.

A good estate plan is a map left for your loved ones who continue on the journey of life without you. Taking the time to complete an estate plan is an act of caring and concern for those you leave behind. Attorney William R. Burford shares seven steps to a successful estate plan that will provide a legacy of stability and certainty for your loved ones.

1. Contemplate Life Without You

Take a few minutes to contemplate your family without you. If you died tomorrow, what would happen to your loved ones? Along with grieving, your family may face many important financial decisions:

Would your survivors know what assets are left for them, where to find the necessary documents, whom to call and what to do?
Do you know what legal proceedings would be required or their cost?
If you have children, do you know who would care for them?
Would there be funds available to support them?
Do you know to whom your property would pass?

Answers exist to these questions, although they may or may not be what you would expect or intend. You will leave behind a legacy when you die. Will it be one of stability and security or disorder and worry? The choice is yours.

2. Commit to Action

Proper estate planning requires a commitment. If you honestly consider the consequences of your death, it should be apparent that you either know what will happen to your family when you die or you're not sure. Do you care? With knowledge comes responsibility. Are you willing to educate yourself on the legalities of creating a valid estate plan or do you wish to pay an expert to create the necessary legal documents? Good intentions are worth little. Action is essential.

3. Collect Information

Good decision-making is based on good information. Whether your estate is large or small, or somewhere in between, proper estate planning requires consideration of your assets and liabilities, your family situation and the specific needs of various family members. A will and other legal instruments are critically important components of an estate plan, but good planning involves much more than signing a few documents. The goal is to assure that you protect the emotional and physical well-being of your loved ones by leaving a legacy of stability and security.

To provide the protection your loved ones need, you will need an accurate picture of your present financial resources and future needs. If you have not completed an estate plan before, or have not reviewed your plan in several years, you may lack adequate life insurance or have outdated or incorrect beneficiary designations on insurance policies, retirement accounts or employment benefits. Collecting basic financial information will allow for the creation of an estate plan that will take care of your family if you are no longer able to do so.

4. Consider the Alternatives

Once you have committed to action and collected the necessary family and financial information, you will be faced with many questions and a few basic decisions. Sometimes these decisions are simple. For example, new parents may wish to assure that their property passes to the other spouse if one of them dies and is available for their child if they both pass away. Even a simple plan, however, will usually require consideration of an array of issues and alternatives.

How is title to your property held?
Should property be held in joint tenancy?
Should you establish a living trust?
What is probate?
What are the costs and benefits of a living trust?
Should your assets be left outright to a child or spouse?
Who should act as your executor or successor trustee?
Should you appoint a single trustee or co-trustees?
When should you consider a bank or other professional fiduciary?
How can you assure that your beneficiaries are treated fairly?

These are just a few of the flurry of questions that may need to be addressed in constructing a complete estate plan. It is at this stage that a qualified and experienced estate planning lawyer can add significant value by narrowing or expanding the inquiry, asking the right questions, avoiding common and often costly mistakes and offering solutions to potential problems.

5. Construct the Plan

An estate plan consists of a variety of written documents. Having considered the alternatives, your choices are committed to paper. As with any legal instrument, a will, trust or beneficiary designation must be clear and unambiguous. Make sure that your estate planning documents accurately express your wishes. An attorney can draft and explain the necessary legal instruments or, if you use software programs or forms to prepare planning documents, hire a lawyer to review them for you. A single word used without careful consideration or a lack of clarity in one sentence can lead to a dispute and costly litigation. The words in a will or trust stand by themselves. You will not be there to explain what you meant after you're gone.

6. Complete Your Documents

Unlike fine wine, unsigned wills and trusts do not get better with age. An unsigned will is not a valid legal instrument. Having proceeded this far, you must now complete the process by signing your documents and following the necessary legal formalities to assure that they are valid and effective. Estate planning lawyers often see clients who go to the trouble and expense of having legal instruments drafted, but then ignore calls and reminders to review and sign their documents. Remember that you have accepted responsibility for the well-being of your loved ones. Follow-through is critical the creation of an effective estate plan.

7. Communicate

A will or trust that no one can find will not govern the disposition of your estate. Instead, the law will decide who receives your property. Communicate to family members, a friend or business partner, and your accountant or financial advisor the location of your estate planning and other important financial documents. Although you may not wish to share the specifics of your estate plan with anyone else while you are living, your loved ones or other trusted persons should know where your important legal and financial instruments are kept.

If you follow these seven steps, you will successfully create an effective estate plan that will provide for and protect your family following your death. Knowing that you will leave a legacy of stability and security, go forward and live life to the fullest.

William R. Burford is an attorney with the law firm of Rutter, Hobbs & Davidoff Incorporated. He can be reached at (310) 286-1700 or visit the Web site www.rutterhobbs.com.

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Productivity Means Working Smarter, Not Longer

HBSWK Pub. Date: Jan 30, 2006

Forget multitasking and long hours. Stever Robbins says the best way to increase personal productivity is to work faster, look for parallel opportunities, and focus on the big wins.

by Stever Robbins

Workers in the United States put in more hours at work and take fewer vacation days than those in most industrialized countries. But the U.S isn't the most productive country in the world. When it comes to full productivity, according to an article in The Economist, France wins, working only forty hours a week with lots of vacation. Conversations with clients and friends suggest we're working hard, but, well, stupidly. We're busy, but our important priorities are falling by the wayside as we work hard when we should be working smart.

Working smart means getting the same results in less time. To do that, you must change how you work. You'll get the most by changing your speed, increasing focus, and organizing to do things in parallel.

Start with your eyes open

Before you read on, I must warn you: Working smart is risky. If you work smart, you'll have more free time. That means more leisure, shorter work hours, or . . . more work. If you use the free time to take on more commitments, you're just as busy as before, but now you are so tightly scheduled that a slip in one project can cascade to many more projects. Happiness happens when productivity enables a higher-quality life, not frantic overachievement.

Right now, we get more productive by working longer. But how about working faster? To work faster, you'll have to get into the zone. In the zone, you're running a marathon. You bring your full focus to one task and build momentum until you're producing results like nobody's business.

Key to entering the zone is eliminating distraction. Your major distractions—let me guess—are e-mail, telephone, visitors, and yourself. One of my clients, a high-tech CEO, blocks out four hours each day for focus time. He closes his door, forwards the phone to voice-mail, and starts working to build up his rhythm. He rarely works the entire four hours, but by having the time blocked out, he's sure to get a couple of hours of solid work under his belt. And without distractions, he can spend time doing big-picture thinking, instead of being pulled into details. After five years, he considers this one of the best habits he's ever developed.

Happiness happens when productivity enables a higher-quality life, not frantic overachievement.

Your biggest distractions will come from you, though. You'll multitask. And sadly, you'll believe you're getting more done as you do. Face reality: People are less productive when multitasking, and that's been shown in many studies over the last few years—check out "Juggling Too Many Tasks Could Make You Stupid" by Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2003. We feel busy, but most of that busy-ness is spent switching from task to task, not making forward progress on any one task.

Increase focus

If you're like me, you hardly ever procrastinate—except for the really important stuff. The rubber bands get dutifully sorted by size, but that client proposal? Not so much. Another way to work smarter is by distinguishing busy from productive. Oh, we're busy, and we feel productive, but we're only productive if we're producing the results that are most important to moving the company forward.

E-mail is a great way to waste time feeling productive. And we get so much of it, so surely those two hours a day reading and replying is time well spent. But if you spend two hours of an eight-hour workday on e-mail, that's 25 percent of your time. Unless that 25 percent of your time is producing at least 25 percent of your total income, it's a low-value-added activity, no matter how many one-shot, ad hoc contracts you get that way.

The same applies to any activity. The 80/20 rule says that 80 percent of your results come from just 20 percent of your efforts. Companies find most profits come from a few customers. And you'll find most of your output comes from a few of your tasks. So what? Well, look at the math. If you double the time you spend on real-output-producing activities and stop doing the others, you'll double your output and spend 60 percent less time! If you started with a ten-hour workday, you'll get twice as much done, working just four hours.

Consider Nancy. Nancy is a self-employed sales trainer. In a typical day, she might write her electronic newsletter, deliver a one-hour training, make a dozen prospect calls, categorize her receipts, and straighten her office. These all must get done, yet only delivering the training and making prospect calls directly bring in business. Nancy's hidden productivity opportunity comes in making more prospecting calls, and spending less time categorizing receipts. In fact, she can hire a bookkeeper for a year with the extra money she makes from one additional sale.

Once you're concentrating on your high-output work, you can get another boost by streamlining. If Nancy gets 10 percent better at prospecting, that adds more to her bottom line than anything she can do in other areas.

Say no

My favorite 80/20 principle is saying "no." Most of us take on more than we can handle. Then our companies lay off 30 percent of the work force and expect the same output from the survivors. Our overwork gets compounded by dumb high-level decision making.

Once you're concentrating on your high-output work, you can get another boost by streamlining.

If you're working at capacity, say "no" to that new client. If someone proposes a project that will fall in 80 percent-work-for-20 percent-results category, just say "no." Face facts, my friend: There's a limit to how much you can do. You can manage that limit and do things well, or you can ignore the limit and do a lousy job on everything. The choice is yours.

Work in parallel, but don't multitask

When you multitask, you do many things at once. Bad idea. But you can find ways to arrange work so many things are happening at once. Good idea. If you are collaborating on a report and writing a marketing plan, you could write the plan and then work on the report. But look closely! Your colleague must review the report. So first draft your report and send it to your colleague. While she's reviewing, you get to work on the marketing plan. Work moves forward on both at the same time.

While we all work this way to some degree, a little thought can find golden opportunities for parallelism. Delegation is a great tool here. When you delegate a task, it keeps moving while you're working on something else. Just make sure you are delegating to someone with the time, tools, and resources to do the job. Otherwise, you'll find the task coming back to bite you.

Another great source of time delays is when something's being produced or shipped. Will your prospectus be going to the printer? Great! Use that time to hammer through your high-leverage tasks. The product is en route to your customer? That means more time for you to do other things. But if you putter around with low-priority tasks until you ship last minute via Federal Express, you lose the chance to work in parallel.

Combine and think

You can get very creative in how you use these principles. A partner in a new private equity firm wanted to buy and run a company. He realized he would say "no" 99 percent of the time, and "yes" only once or twice. To speed things along, he got very clear on the criteria to disqualify a deal as quickly as possible. He said "no" a whole lot. His ability to quickly weed out the duds ultimately led to a deal that's showing gains of $170 million in thirteen months. If he hadn't streamlined his low-leverage activity (saying "no") so he could reach his high-leverage "yes," he would likely have invested in one of his earlier, not-so-great deals.

Have you noticed a pattern? Working faster, identifying your 80/20 opportunities, and using opportunities for parallelism all take thought and planning before you reap the rewards.

So your highest-leverage activity is taking regular time to reexamine and tweak how you work. This year, I'm spending a half-day every two weeks to build a life and business that are productive. And to me, productivity means producing maximum happiness for me, my family, and friends. I entreat you to do the same. Give it a shot. You'll be happier, you'll get more done, and you'll get to see your kids for dinner. And that's what I call working smart.

Stever Robbins is founder and president of LeadershipDecisionworks, a consulting firm that helps companies develop leadership and organizational strategies to sustain growth and productivity over time. You can find more of his articles at http://LeadershipDecisionworks.com. He is the author of It Takes a Lot More than Attitude to Lead a Stellar Organization.