A will says who gets what. It does not say which bank, which pension, where the deeds are, who your accountant is, or that there is a policy nobody knows about.
That gap is what leaves families searching for months. The fix is a plain record of what exists and where it is kept, which takes a couple of evenings and is entirely separate from any legal document.
A large share of adults have no estate documents at all. If that is you, this file is a far better place to start than a will, because it is useful immediately and requires nobody's signature.
What goes in it
Locations and references, not the documents themselves. This is a map, not a vault.
9 things to do
Ticks are for this visit only. Nothing here is saved anywhere.
What must not go in it
Passwords, PINs and full account numbers do not belong here, because this document is deliberately findable and that is the whole point of it.
Record where the password manager is and who has recovery access, and stop there. A file that is safe to leave in a drawer is worth far more than a perfect one locked somewhere nobody can reach.
Where to keep it, and who should know
At least two people should know it exists and where it is. A perfect record nobody can find is the same as no record, and this happens more often than you would think.
Paper is genuinely better here than a file on a laptop, because the laptop needs a password, the password is in the password manager, and the password manager is the thing they cannot get into.
Do it in passes, not in one sitting
The reason this never gets done is that people treat it as a single overwhelming project. It is not. Bank accounts on one evening, pensions another, digital on a third.
Any one of those passes on its own makes things meaningfully easier for whoever comes after. There is no version of this where a partial file is worthless.