Some may already do this, whether on paper, in Excel or online, but creating todo-lists is a great way to focus on what you have to do (first) and use your brain for other tasks than remembering your agenda.
Actually, it is no replacement for an agenda. Todo-lists are the small task lists you would also write on paper, like grocery lists. You can keep writing them on paper but since we’re in the digital era, there are great replacements. One of them is the free Ta-da Lists from 37 Signals. Another well-known is Remember The Milk. But even the “famous-all-round-application” Excel does the trick for many.
The key to improve your productivity is to write everything down you need to do. This makes sure you don’t need to remember each single thing and gives you the possibility to handle task by task.
Certainly when working on projects (of any kind), you will have a todo-list for each of them. In development environments a bug-tracker partially takes care of this, but in numerous situations you’ll need to use todo-lists separately.
The basic rule you have to live by in creating successful lists, is this: split up your todo’s in as many small tasks as possible. Then take care of them one by one at the appropriate time. When using one of the mentioned online tools, you can mark them completed and they will disappear from your list (which gives some kind of satisfaction).
And don’t feel awkward if you start to create lists of lists. This is perfectly normal and provides you with a global overview while still having small tasks at the bottom level.
I believe the use of todo-lists is part of the methodology “Getting Things Done” (or GTD). I have not really thoroughly read anything about GTD, but I assume it is a useful practice (for some more than others, like with everything).
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