There are several things you can do to make the process as simple as possible.

• Prepare a schedule of your current assets, date it, and give approximate values. This doesn’t have to be all your assets – just those with some monetary value. Provide details of any subsequent purchases or disposals.
• Prepare a schedule of your current debts, and date that too. Provide details if you subsequently add to or reduce any non-recurring debts (for example, if you pay off your mortgage).
• Provide details (name, address and telephone number) of your bank(s), stockbroker(s) if any, accountant(s) if any, and solicitors. Make a note of your bank account numbers too, but for security keep it separate – give it to your executor, or at least tell them where it is.
• Provide a list of your utility providers (gas, electricity, water, telephone and cable or satellite), with addresses, phone numbers and account numbers.
• Decide what kind of a funeral you want, and if possible, who is to be employed to provide it. Provide instructions for your executors and your next of kin.
• Provide precise details of the chattels you are leaving to individual beneficiaries, in sufficient detail to ensure that there can be no doubt about what it is you intend to leave to whom.
• Provide a list of your favourite charities/charity shops, so that your executors can dispose of some of your remaining chattels there, before the house clearance people come in.
• Provide a list of your beneficiaries, with their current addresses and telephone numbers. Stay in touch with them, so that you can amend their details if necessary.

Keep all this information together, and tell your executors where it and your will are kept.
Insofar as it is possible to do so, clear out your unwanted possessions (keeping anything promised in your will). In particular, go through your papers and throw out or at least store logically any that are now out of date – otherwise your executors could be tied up for weeks going through them.