Success hinges on the financial planning you do before you feel the impact of the crisis, during the period if you are affected, and when things revert back to normal. The following provides some of the things you’ll want to do and avoid doing and how to handle changes, including the return to normal.

If you are nearing retirement or any other goal that would require you to sell some investments anyway (aka you need to start spending your savings in the next 0-5 years, depending on your risk tolerance), then regardless of what experts are predicting, it’s probably a good idea to plan ahead for withdrawals. If you’re like me with many years to go until you’ll need that money, here’s just a quick reminder that investing is for the long haul and in most cases, trying to time the market is a losing game. You may want to follow the advice of many investing experts and just stay the course.

You can then take this risk tolerance questionnaire to make sure you have the right amount of your portfolio in stocks, bonds, and cash based on your time frame and comfort with risk. If your money is invest in a target date fund or other asset allocation fund, then this will already be done for you. If you’ve created your own mix, it might be time to reallocate between stocks and bonds. Here are 4 ideas to rebalance your portfolio if you need some guidance there.