A few weeks ago, a client called me in a panic. “I’m leaving for New Zealand in ten days, and I just realized—I don’t have a will. Can we get it done before I go?”
This is something I hear all the time. People put off estate planning for years, sometimes decades, but suddenly, when a big trip is coming up, they feel the urgent need to get everything in order.
The irony is that nothing in their life has really changed. Flying is one of the safest ways to travel, far safer than driving a car or even walking through a busy intersection. Yet the moment people step out of their daily routine, they start thinking about the what-ifs.
It turns out there’s a real psychological reason for this. The science of procrastination, risk perception, and deadlines explains why travel makes people finally take action on their estate plan—and how that same mindset can be used to stop procrastinating before it’s too late.
The Psychology of Travel and Estate Planning Procrastination
Most people don’t avoid estate planning because they don’t care. They avoid it because it’s uncomfortable. Thinking about death, making decisions about finances, and confronting family dynamics are things most people would rather not deal with.
In the 2025 paper “Delaying Until It Is Definitely Too Late – A Theoretical Framework for Explaining Procrastination in Estate Planning,” Michaela Tanner and her co-authors found that people tend to delay estate planning because avoiding the topic provides immediate emotional relief. Estate planning forces people to think about mortality, and putting it off feels better in the moment—even though it creates bigger problems down the road.
But then, something changes. They book a flight. They plan a trip. And suddenly, that avoidance isn’t working anymore. The what-ifs creep in. They think about what would happen if they didn’t come back.
Psychologists call this mortality salience—the awareness that life is fragile. When people are confronted with reminders of their own mortality, they are more likely to take action on long-term planning, including estate planning. A study on procrastination by Piers Steel and Cornelius König, published in 2006, found that people tend to prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. This is called Temporal Motivation Theory, and it explains why something like estate planning, which only provides benefits after death, tends to get pushed off indefinitely.
That is, until a deadline forces the issue.
Why Deadlines Push People Into Action
For many people, estate planning stays on the to-do list for years because there’s no urgency. There’s no immediate consequence for not doing it. That’s why self-imposed deadlines rarely work. People tell themselves they’ll handle it “next month” or “when things slow down,” but those deadlines don’t carry real weight.
A vacation, however, is a hard deadline—one that can’t be ignored or rescheduled. Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch, in a 2002 study on procrastination and deadlines, found that external deadlines are far more effective than self-imposed ones. This is exactly why so many people scramble to write a will before a big trip.
They can’t push the deadline back. Their flight is leaving, and they want to have everything in place before they go.
The problem is that making last-minute legal decisions under pressure is rarely a good idea. While it’s always better to have a plan than to have nothing at all, rushing through estate planning means you may not be thinking through the details carefully. Naming guardians for minor children, deciding how assets should be distributed, or ensuring medical preferences are documented—these aren’t things that should be done in a panic.
How to Stop Procrastinating on Estate Planning
If the urgency of travel gets you to finally create a will, take that as a sign. Instead of waiting for the next vacation panic, set an intentional deadline now.
One way to do this is to tie estate planning to another meaningful deadline—a birthday, an anniversary, or even tax season. Something that gives you a reason to take action before it becomes urgent.
Another strategy is to reframe how you think about estate planning. Instead of seeing it as something unpleasant, think of it as an act of care. It’s not just about preparing for death. It’s about protecting your family, avoiding unnecessary legal stress, and ensuring your wishes are carried out.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve ever had that moment before a trip where you thought, “I need to get my will in order,” you’re not alone. It happens all the time, and there’s a real psychological reason behind it. Travel disrupts routine, reminds us of our mortality, and provides an external deadline that forces action.
But waiting until the last minute to take care of something so important isn’t ideal. The best time to get your estate plan done is before it feels urgent—when you have time to think, plan, and make decisions carefully.
If this sounds familiar, don’t wait for your next trip to push you into action. Take care of it now, on your own terms.
