Estate planning is not very enjoyable for most people. I’d guess that the majority of us would rather clean out the garage or tackle our messiest closet. Fight that urge!

Instead of leaving a mess behind, I’d encourage you to pick a stretch of rainy days, spread out your paperwork, and organize your thoughts. It actually looks like we’re about to have a pretty long stretch of rain. Try to put it to good use.

Let’s start with your last will. It names your personal representative who will handle your affairs after you’re gone. Often people just leave everything to their spouse or to their children. But, you can also allow you to identify specific items you may want to leave to certain people. If you set things up properly, your last will really won’t have any control over any of your assets that already have named beneficiaries. If things are done right, your personal representative might actually have very little to do.

One major goal with estate planning is to avoid probate court and make things easier for your heirs. While probate is not the worst outcome, it just creates hoops for your family to jump through. If you are organized, you can avoid probate by assigning a “home” for each of your assets after you die.

There are basically two estate plan approaches to choose from to help avoid probate; a beneficiary-based setup or a trust-based plan.

There are some very classic reasons for going with a trust-based plan. For example, trusts are a good fit for people who have young children, loved ones with special needs, situations that involve multiple marriages or just wanting more control over how and when your assets are distributed after your death. Your estate planning attorney will steer you in the right direction.

Regardless of the probate avoidance path you choose, you should start by reviewing every account or asset you own. These include your IRAs, retirement plans, life insurance, annuities, after-tax investment accounts, bank accounts and your real estate. Make sure you’ve named both primary and contingent beneficiaries for each one.

Now, your home is a different animal. In Michigan, a Lady Bird Deed often works like a beneficiary designation for your house. The people you name will receive the property after you die, without having to deal with the probate process. If you go with a trust-based plan, your trust can own your real estate, instead.

Finally, you’ll also need some documents for situations where you’re either incapacitated or even temporarily unable to handle your own affairs. A patient advocate designation, often called a health care power of attorney, names someone to make your medical decisions for you. A durable power of attorney for financial matters names an agent to handle your business affairs. Think through the people who can play these roles for you. Remember, you can always change your mind, so don’t overthink things at the expense of doing nothing. And, we all know that doing nothing is way too easy.

Of course, I am not an attorney. Sitting down with one to draw from their professional experience is really important. But, try to arrive somewhat prepared. It will save time and money, and your estate planning attorney will appreciate it.

Estate planning is not anyone’s idea of summer fun. But neither is leaving your family with a big, disorganized mess to clean up later. Believe me, they’d much rather deal with your garage or closet.

Artificial intelligence is being woven into nearly everything. Some of it is highly visible. Much of it is working silently beneath the surface. And, its impact is very hard to overstate.

AI tools are supercharging productivity for businesses and workers. Plain and simple, companies are finding tons of ways to do far more with fewer people. Things that once took hours can now be done in minutes. Job functions in data analysis, customer service and administrative work is increasingly being automated. Once you experience AI’s power, you cannot imagine ever putting the genie back in the bottle.

Investors clearly see it. It’s one of the biggest reasons the stock market continues to sit near all-time highs, despite a long list of uncertainties.

We all see our global alliances increasingly strained. Wars have broken out that threaten our energy sources. China’s growing threat toward Taiwan is simmering in the background. Political tensions are high as we head into yet another election cycle. Inflation pressures have jumped once again and the Fed has totally reversed course as it now openly contemplates hiking, not cutting, interest rates.

Normally, this is a backdrop that would create market stress, not market highs. Yet, stocks continue rising because investors believe in AI’s game-changing impact.

But, we’re beginning to see some early signs of a backlash. College graduates are openly showing anxiety about the effect of AI on their job prospects and overall futures. Politicians are just starting to talk about the need to protect workers. Even the pope has chimed in. The backlash is only going to grow louder from here. Their concern about AI is totally understandable.

AI is currently disrupting traditional, knowledge-based jobs. Just look at the headlines about layoffs from tech companies. It’s underway. But the next wave is just around the corner. While it may take a few years, AI-embedded robotics are quickly coming after many physical jobs, too.

So, while AI may – for a while, at least – continue driving productivity gains, higher profits and record stock prices, it will absolutely leave us with serious social questions to answer.

In what way will those who benefit most from AI be required to share with those who have been replaced by it? Will we need some level of universal income? How much? And, what role does meaningful work play in our lives as humans?

From my vantage point as a wealth manager, things are certainly complicated today. The opportunities AI is creating are very, very real. But so are the risks. Beneath all of the justifiable excitement surrounding AI today, there is simply no doubt that it’s a sharp sword that can and will cut both ways. The trick, I suppose, is knowing when the blade starts to swing back the other way. 

Q: My husband and I just retired and we’re worried. Our stocks are down quite a lot over the last couple months, and even our bonds have dropped lately. It feels like things could get worse. Should we be making changes?

A: What you’re feeling is totally normal. There’s definitely not a shortage of bad news. The market is coming off very lofty expectations for AI and we just started a war with Iran. So, there’s no question that watching your portfolio drop so soon after retiring adds a lot of extra stress. 

But, as you know, you’re going to experience this feeling (and worse) quite often during your retirement years. Adopting a sound money mindset and the right approach for handling your money is really important. It might save you from reacting in damaging ways when things start feeling even more uncertain. And, they will someday.

It might help to take a high-level view of things. A 10% decline in stocks is called a “correction” for a reason. It sends the message that it’s kind of a routine thing. You can basically expect it to happen every few years. During a typical bear market, even a balanced portfolio can decline 10% to 15%. While I’m not dismissing your worry, what we’ve seen over the last month or two is quite mild. 

To build a resilient setup, of course you need to have a balanced and diversified portfolio. That’s just classic advice. But, just as importantly, you should also know how you’d adjust your spending during a real downturn. I’m talking about looking at things like travel, eating out, making gifts and spending money on big ticket items. Just delaying some of these expenses – for even a short time – can build resilience in your plan.

It’s also really important to not lean too hard on your portfolio. For early retirees, my general rule-of-thumb is to keep your portfolio withdrawals in the ballpark of 3% to 4% per year. This alone can allow you to avoid even thinking about spending adjustments.

While nobody knows the future – and that goes for financial pros – the bigger risk to  your success in retirement probably isn’t the market. It’s you. There is nothing more damaging than making big moves based on fear. Trying to sidestep downturns is pretty impossible and opens up the risk of missing market recoveries.

This brings me to my final point. 

The war with Iran certainly has longer-term implications that are hard to predict. However, in the short-term, the market senses we’re only one social media post away from a market rally. We got a glimpse of it again this past week. The so-called TACO trade – the catchy acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out – is ever present. 

While we definitely have some serious problems, it’s clear that some of them are self-inflicted. Thankfully, those can be solved by keeping a level head and, honestly, holding elections.