I’m coming to the conclusion that how you manage your to do list – on paper, in a calendar, on an app, in your head – is that important.
Rather, what’s important is the practice (hooray! another practice) of actually using it and keeping it current. Specifically, taking ten minutes as early as possible in your working day and ten minutes right towards the end to review the things you need to do, prioritise them, and work out roughly when you’re going to do what.
That’s it.
Then do it again tomorrow. And the next day.
Of course you’d do well to refer to a strategic plan to work out what’s important, and to look at responsibilities and commitments for the week ahead on a Monday, and for the month ahead on the first day of the month, and so on into the future… but to a large extent these things will take care of themselves if you establish using the to do list as a daily practice, where life-goals, hopes, dreams and strategy meet what you’re actually going to do… now.