For the person who was just named executor
Nobody trained you for this. Here’s the map.
The plain-English guide to the first 90 days of settling an estate — what’s actually due, what absolutely isn’t, and how to do the job with calm competence while you’re still grieving.
Exactly what you get
The Core Guide59 pages · 17 chapters in five parts · organized by timeline, because that’s how the job arrives
- Part 0 — breathe: what an executor actually is, the one-page genuinely-urgent list, and the liability truth told calmly
- Part 1 — the first two weeks: death certificates, securing the house, week-one money, the will, and the DON’T list
- Part 2 — the first month: probate in plain English, the notifications machine, the honest lawyer chapter, the estate account
- Part 3 — days 30–90: the inventory, creditors and claims, the calm tax map, distributions and closing
- Part 4 — the humans: the sibling playbook and the compensation conversation
- Grounded throughout: IRS.gov, SSA survivor pages, CFPB and FTC consumer guidance, ABA resources, court self-help centers
The Estate Binder System8 pages · five tabs · print it tonight
- The first-week checklist and the certificate log
- The reimbursement ledger and the asset & debt inventory grid
- The contacts file and the dated decisions log — the paper trail that lets executors sleep
The Notifications Tracker4 pages · four tiers · confirmation-number columns
- Government, money, credit bureaus, and the household long tail — pre-listed
- The phone script that gets you to the estate department, and past the voicemail trap
The Professional Visit Playbook5 pages · question banks by professional
- The attorney consult bank — scope, deadlines, and the fee conversation, asked plainly
- The CPA, realtor, and appraiser banks — plus the one question that reveals how any professional actually thinks
Four PDFs (five with “The Digital Estate Reset”) · instant download · yours forever · read Chapter 1 tonight.
The internet's alternative is $300-an-hour answers to questions you don't know to ask, and scare ads about being sued. This is the calm version: what the process actually is, in the order it actually arrives — legal information in plain English, never legal advice, and never "you don't need a lawyer."
- The Core Guide — the first 90 days organized by timeline: what's actually due, what absolutely isn't, and the DON'T list that prevents the classic executor mistakes
- The Estate Binder System — the document-everything printable that is also your liability shield: checklists, logs, ledger, and the decisions record
- The Notifications Tracker — the who / when / confirmation-number log for the twenty-plus institutions that need to hear the news
- The Professional Visit Playbook — question banks for the attorney consult (fees included), the CPA, the realtor, and the appraiser
4 PDFs · 59-page core guide · 17 chapters in five timeline parts · grounded in IRS, SSA, CFPB, and court self-help sources
30-day money-back guarantee — full refund, keep the binder.
Secure checkout by Shopify · Published by The Compass Series · Files delivered to your email the moment payment clears
The sentence that started this
Somewhere between the funeral home’s soft chairs and the parking lot, someone said “you’ll need about ten death certificates” — and a job you never applied for landed on you. You’re grieving, and you’ve been handed a legal-administrative project with real deadlines, personal liability you just learned exists, and family watching.
The internet waiting for you afterward is split three ways: attorneys’ websites that answer the questions you know to ask at $300 an hour, fragmented court self-help pages written in another dialect, and scare ads about executors getting sued. What nobody hands you is the thing you actually need at 11 p.m.: a calm, ordered map of what this job is, in the sequence it actually arrives.
Almost nothing is due this week. The genuinely urgent list fits on one page — and nearly every real executor mistake is a speed mistake.
Sound familiar?
- The folder from the funeral home you haven’t been able to open
- The 2 a.m. search: “what does an executor actually do”
- The bank that wants a document you’ve never heard of
- The collector who called before the flowers wilted
- The sibling who already asked about the ring
- The quiet fear underneath it all: what if I do this wrong?
Grounded in
IRS.gov · SSA survivor pages · CFPB & FTC consumer guidance · American Bar Association resources · county probate self-help centers
The map — five parts, in the order the job arrives
Part 0 — Breathe
- The week you were handed a job
- What an executor actually is
Part 1 — The first two weeks
- The death-certificates question
- Securing what exists
- Money in week one
- The will, and what “filing” it means
- The DON’T list
Part 2 — The first month
- Probate, in plain English
- The notifications machine
- The lawyer question, honestly
- The estate’s own bank account
Part 3 — Days 30–90
- The inventory
- Creditors and claims
- Taxes, mapped calmly
- Property, distributions, and closing
Part 4 — The humans
- The sibling playbook
- Paying yourself, and the good ending
What this book will never do
It will never give you legal advice — and it’s honest about the difference. Every chapter that touches law carries the same frame: here’s what this is, and here are the questions for your attorney and your county’s self-help center. No state-specific forms, no form-filling instructions, and never the sentence “you don’t need a lawyer” — because nobody selling that sentence knows your estate.
It will never use your fear as a sales tool. You’ve seen the “executors get sued!” ads. The truth is calmer: liability is real and almost entirely process-preventable, and the book treats you like a competent adult in a hard month — validation first, then order. This is a purchase made in a difficult season, and we hold ourselves to the standard that implies: fairly priced, gently sold, genuinely useful from the first page.
Who it’s for: you were named executor (or are stepping up without a will), it’s your first time, and you want order, plain English, and a paper trail. Not for you if you want legal advice, state forms, or a promise that you can skip the professionals — the first two don’t belong in a book, and the third isn’t honest.
Everything in the bundle
The internet's alternative is $300-an-hour answers to questions you don't know to ask, and scare ads about being sued. This is the calm version: what the process actually is, in the order it actually arrives — legal information in plain English, never legal advice, and never "you don't need a lawyer."
- The Core Guide — the first 90 days organized by timeline: what's actually due, what absolutely isn't, and the DON'T list that prevents the classic executor mistakes
- The Estate Binder System — the document-everything printable that is also your liability shield: checklists, logs, ledger, and the decisions record
- The Notifications Tracker — the who / when / confirmation-number log for the twenty-plus institutions that need to hear the news
- The Professional Visit Playbook — question banks for the attorney consult (fees included), the CPA, the realtor, and the appraiser
4 PDFs · 59-page core guide · 17 chapters in five timeline parts · grounded in IRS, SSA, CFPB, and court self-help sources
30-day money-back guarantee — full refund, keep the binder.
Secure checkout by Shopify · Published by The Compass Series · Files delivered to your email the moment payment clears
In the first week right now? Start free.
“The First Seven Days” — the calm one-week checklist, the ten-death-certificates question answered, and the DON’T list that prevents the classic mistakes. One PDF, sent to your email. No card, no strings.
Checkout collects only your email — $0.00, no card fields.
Questions, answered honestly
Is this legal advice? Will it replace a lawyer?
No, twice — and it says so on every surface. This is legal information: what probate is, what executors do, what the deadlines and documents are about. It never tells you what your estate should do, contains no forms, and never claims you don't need an attorney. What it does is make the professional hours you do buy dramatically more efficient — you arrive organized, with the right questions written down.
Probate is different in every state — how can one guide help?
By being honest about exactly that. Probate is state law; the guide says so early and often, teaches the national concepts every state shares, and routes you to the authoritative local source at every step: your county probate court's self-help center. Think of it as the national map that shows you how to read the local one.
I was just named executor and I'm overwhelmed. Where do I even start?
With one sentence: almost nothing is due this week. The genuinely urgent list fits on one page — it's Chapter 1, and it's also the heart of our free guide. The estate is a slow administrative project, not a bomb with a timer, and the whole book is organized by timeline so you can put it down.
I'm afraid of the personal liability I keep reading about.
The guide addresses this honestly and calmly: executor liability is real, and it almost never comes from honest mistakes made carefully. It comes from a short, well-known list of avoidable moves — distributing too early, paying debts out of order, mixing funds, deciding in the dark. Every chapter's guardrails exist to keep you off that list, and the Binder's paper trail is the protection.
What exactly do I get, and how?
Four PDFs — the 59-page Core Guide, the Estate Binder System, the Notifications Tracker, and the Professional Visit Playbook — delivered instantly after checkout. Read on any device; the binder pages print or fill in any PDF app. No login, no app, no subscription.
Refunds?
Thirty days, full refund, no hoops.