It is easy to get busy with daily life and forget to leave time for review and updating. Whenever I am advising clients to periodically review certain information, I tell them to pick a certain time of year for review and use that same time every year. It is easier to remember that way.
No matter what kind of calendaring or “to-do” lists you use, whether you use apps or a plain old paper wall calendar, you can benefit from scheduling your own “yearly review time”.
We often advise “tax time” as the best time to review because it is easy to remember and you are going to have your bookkeeping and paperwork spread out anyway.
A few important things that I advise you to review yearly:
- Your Will: Think that you “just” updated your will? Look at the year you signed it. You may find that it was much further in the past than you think. Time to update!
- Medical powers of attorney & Durable Powers of Attorney (for day-to-day business);
- Beneficiary designations on your life insurance policies, retirement accounts and investments;
- Your business books and records. If you have a Texas corporation, LLP, or general partnership, you will need to be certain that you have updated your books (whether hard copy or scans) by documenting important events that happened during the last year, paying business taxes or fees due to the state and taken other actions necessary to keep your business in good standing.
- Ongoing business contracts for landlord, service providers, suppliers and so on. Some contracts automatically renew if you don’t say otherwise.
Calendaring these tasks for the same time every year will help you get them done and avoid an emergency!
