Recently I dedicated 1 day to find the best suited to-do manager out there. I decided to stick with ToDolist (i’ve worked with this application before).

The developer regularly updates his product and it’s a great tool indeed once you setup everything.

If you need collaborative task lists like I do, simply install a file syncing tool

Works like a charm and I highly recommend it.

For my own lists, I use a 3×5 Circa notebook from the Levengers catalog. The pages in that are easily rearranged if necessary. The pages also separate into standard 3×5 cards which I can take with me all by themselves or fit into the rings of a larger Circa notebook if necessary (as when I’m writing and have jotted down a few things to expand on when I go to the library). It’s a very versatile system.

I also find myself rely increasingly on pen and paper, as I’m not alway connected to the internet and find many software packages suffering from feature bloat.

Then, there’s always the golden oldie of just making a note and putting it right in front of my face so I have to deal with it right away.

The toughest hurdle for me to overcome in being more productive is just a general lack of focus. I have a remarkable ability to surf the internet for hours, not really accomplishing much of anything.

I use yellow for items that have had some progress made, or waiting for items, and then I can use a darker color later if I finish it off. When I make a new list, I can see the half-done items and reword them to reflect their current status (follow up, etc)

Very easy, very satisfying and intuitive.

It organizes all my actions, inbox, projects, contexts, waiting, etc. – just like GTD told me too.

Great stuff!

1. I like to mind map my lists using Visual Mind 8. This allows you to “roll-up” a project, and then “pop-open” the project and see all the detailed items related to that project, rather like using the Outliner in Microsoft Word for developing a list.

2. I use Microsoft’s OneNote for lab notes, and I have four lists going at all times there. Each list gets a single page, They are: To-Do Today (things that I really am going to do TODAY). To-Do This Week, stuff that has to get done this week, To-Do This month, and To-Do This Year.
Items get transferred from right to left, that is Year->Month->Week->Day
OneNote has check boxes for each item that can satisfy my need to check off things as they are accomplished. It integrates with OutLook if needed (including the calendar), and you can sync it among multiple machines, (desktop and laptop, for example).

3. During a hectic day, I just use Post-Its, one item per Post-It. When my desk gets covered with them, they are transferred into one of the above systems, and then thrown away.

For my own to-dos, I use a small notebook opened flat– the left side for personal items, the right for work items. I then scratch out, draw diagrams, annotate, and move to the next day’s page as necessary. I never allow myself more than the one page each per day, because it’s too much. I also try to use general topics with granular to-dos under them to indicate projects.

For my project management work, I’m currently evaluating different tools. I’ve used Remember The Milk and Basecamp and am not happy with either of them for long term projects with multiple employees/resources. Top of my list right now are Zoho Projects and AceProject.

I set aside the first 2 hours of the day for the “small stuff” – stuff that has to get done, but adding it to the to-do list takes more time than actually completing the task.

I also use the preview feature in Outlook so when I get an email, I can see who it’s from and what the subject is without opening it. This tells me whether or not I need to stop what I’m doing to read the whole message.