I don’t always behave the way people expect me to.

When I meet with new clients, most expect me to say that they should start putting together their estate plan right away. My response is always the same. “Tell me when you’re going to die or become incapacitated and we can work backwards from there,” I’ll say.

There’s usually a long pause after that.

So when is the right time to start working on an estate plan or to begin planning for the care of an elderly or disabled loved one? The right time is whenever you realize that your peace of mind has been disrupted. An unexpected illness of a loved one catches you off guard. The death of a close friend reminds you that life is short. Anything that disrupts the fragile status quo leaves most of us grasping about for certainty. And if the disruption is big enough, it can be a great motivator to attend to those estate planning or long-term care planning tasks that keep getting pushed to the back burner.

So, if recent events have you concerned about the future, that’s good. Restoring peace of mind is the best reason of all to plan. And a good, forward-thinking plan will consider a wide variety of scenarios and give you the flexibility to respond with confidence no matter what happens.