Short answer: an end-of-life planning checklist for a prepared adult covers four things: documents (an advance health care directive, a will, a financial power of attorney, and a POLST if you're seriously ill), people (who decides for you and who needs to know where things are), accounts (money, insurance, digital life), and your body and ritual wishes, written down. In California, the Attorney General's office notes there is no required form for an advance health care directive, but state law requires certain provisions. The caveat: this is a California-focused checklist, not legal advice. For anything complicated, see an estate attorney.
This page is the hub. Each item links to a deeper guide.
1. Health care documents
- Advance health care directive. Your treatment wishes, plus who decides when you can't. The California Attorney General recommends talking with your doctor and family first, then giving copies to your agent, your doctor, your care facility and trusted family. Deep dive: advance directive and why every adult needs an advance care plan.
- Pick your health care agent (and a backup). Deep dive: how to choose a health care proxy.
- POLST, if you're seriously ill. California's POLST is a medical order form, printed on bright pink paper, signed by the patient or their decision-maker and a physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant. It covers CPR, intubation, scope of treatment and tube feeding. It's not for healthy 30-year-olds; it's for people facing a medical crisis or the end of life. Deep dive: full code vs. quality of life.
- Organ donation. Register with Donate Life California if that's your call, and tell your family.
2. Money and property documents
- A will. Who gets what, and who's in charge (your executor). Deep dive: writing a will.
- Durable power of attorney for finances. Someone who can pay your bills if you can't. Deep dive: power of attorney.
- Beneficiaries. Check them on life insurance, retirement accounts and bank accounts. Deep dive: life insurance beneficiaries.
- Ask an estate attorney about probate. Formal probate in California typically takes 9 to 18 months. Ask whether your assets can pass another way. Our hidden costs of death explains what probate can cost your family.
3. Accounts and the paper trail
- One master list: bank accounts, credit cards, insurance policies, retirement accounts, the mortgage, recurring bills.
- Where the originals are. The will, the deed, the car title, the policies. Deep dive: how to find the will and documents, written for survivors, which is exactly why you should read it now.
- Digital life. Passwords, phone access, email, social accounts, photos. Deep dive: digital legacy planning.
- Subscriptions. The streaming and software you'd want cancelled.
4. People
- Have the conversation. Not a one-time talk; a series. Deep dive: the death planning conversation guide.
- Tell your agent, executor and one more person where everything is. The AG's checklist is blunt: plans are no good unless others can refer to them when they're needed.
- Dependents and pets. Who takes them. Deep dive: caring for dependents and pets after death.
- Your story. If there's something you want your family to know, record it. Deep dive: the family storykeeper.
Stuck on step one? An Otherside coordinator can walk you through the list and connect you with the right attorney or doula.
5. Your body and ritual wishes
This is the part most checklists skip, and the part families fight about.
- Burial, cremation, aquamation, or something else. Write it down. Options: green burial, eco-friendly cremation.
- Know who'll be in charge of your body. Under California's Health and Safety Code 7100, the right to control disposition goes first to an agent under a power of attorney for health care who has that right, then your spouse, then a majority of your adult children, and on down. If you want someone else in charge, put it in your health care directive.
- Put your directions in writing. California lets you direct the disposition of your remains and the funeral goods and services you want, in writing, before death (HSC 7100.1). Those directions are binding when they're clear and the payment is arranged.
- The service you want. Or don't want. See the eco-friendly funeral checklist.
- Where you want to die, and how the room should feel. The AG's checklist asks: "When you are dying, do you want to be in a nursing home, hospital or at home?" Add music, light, who's there, whether the window's open. Our nature-based end-of-life care toolbox has ideas.
- Home vigil or not. Families in California can care for a body at home. Tell them if you'd want that: caring for a body at home after death.
Review it
Look at the list once a year, and after any big change: a marriage, a divorce, a diagnosis, a move, a death.
When the time comes, the survivors' version of this list is our executor checklist.