1. Decide if you need a shared trust or individual trusts.
If you are married and you own most of your property together, a shared trust may be the right way to go. Your other choice is two individual trusts. For more information, see Nolo's article How Living Trusts Avoid Probate.

2. Decide what items to leave in the trust.
You probably don't want to hold all your property in your living trust -- just the big-ticket items that are headed for probate unless you act.

3. Decide who will inherit your trust property.
For most people, choosing family members, friends, or charities to inherit property is easy. After you make your first choices, don't forget to choose alternate (contingent) beneficiaries, too.

4. Choose someone to be your successor trustee.
Your trust must name someone to serve as "successor trustee," to distribute trust property to the beneficiaries after you have died. Once you've made your choice, discuss it with the person you have in mind to make sure he or she is willing to take on this responsibility.

5. Choose someone to manage children's property.
If children or young adults might inherit trust property, you should choose an adult to manage whatever they inherit. To give that person authority over the child's property, you can make him or her a property guardian, a property custodian under a law called the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA), or a trustee. For more information, see Nolo's article  Leaving an Inheritance for Children.

6. Prepare the trust and sign it in front of a notary.
You can create a living trust online with Nolo's Online Living Trust. You log in, answer questions about yourself and your property, and the program will print out a living trust for you. After making your trust, you (and your spouse, if you made a trust together) must sign it in front of a notary public and record it. Nolo's Online Living Trust provides instructions on how to get your trust notarized and recorded. If you prefer to use a book and forms CD to make your own living trust, Make Own Your Living Trust, by Denis Clifford (Nolo), can help you create a living trust.

7. Transfer title of property to yourself as trustee.
This is a crucial step that, unfortunately, some people never take. But to make your trust effective, you must hold title to trust property in your name as trustee -- for example, if John Smith wants to hold real estate in his trust, he must prepare and sign a new deed transferring the real estate to "John Smith, trustee of the John Smith Revocable Living Trust dated June 4, 20xx."

8. Store your trust document safely.
Tell your successor trustee where the trust document is and how to get access to it when the time comes.