Whan I was young and romantic, I loved my to-do lists made with my best pen and written on my elegant agenda. They were fascinating and useful but I do remember I had some productivity issues. First of all I wished all not completed tasks could magically shift to the next day..

Probably less romantic or fascinating, electronic to-do lists definitely changed the productivity levels of my working day.
Which tool you use really does not make much difference. But the way you use it sure does.

Whatever you use (my favorites are Things, Omnifocus and RememberTheMilk) be sure to:

1. Write don’t remember: following David Allen’s GTD approach, don’t try to remember things, just write them down. Don’t use your CPU in trying to keep everything in your mind, but use it to think and be creative. Anything the catches your attention, that you understand you have to take care of should go in the Inbox list for later processing. This is something I do several times a day but you have to do it at least before closing your day and as soon as you start your day. Some people say this is too much time consuming. I think they don’t know how much time it takes in trying to remember lost tasks and how much useless space is occupied in their memories for things that could fit in three lines of text.
2. What next? All GTD based tools are able to handle next actions. This is the place where you should put things you must or should do as soon as you have the time. If you are not able to take care of them, they should probably go in the next day’s actions.
3. To-do lists not calendars: often people confuse to-do lists with calendars and therefore to-do list tools with calendar applications (such as google calendar). They are NOT the same thing. Your to do lists should only contain those elements which are a portion of a project and that do not have a given date or time to be taken care of. A meeting with your boss is not a task, and “complete the marketing report” is not something that should be scheduled in you calendar.
   Using your calendar as a to-do list will only make you forget all the actions which you where not able to do during the day, because they will simply remain in the “past”.
4. Not now? Then when? If you just know a specific task is something you cannot take care of right now, then you should schedule it for a specific date. If you don’t know when and if you are going to accomplish that task, then it is probably a candidate for the “someday” list you should have in your tool. Here you can park objects you are not sure about how to treat them and if you will ever complete them.
5. Projects and areas: all tasks should be part of a project and a given area. Projects can be anything from “business start-up” to “paint the house”. Any task should be the atomic element of a project. Also, each task (and therefore each project) should go into a specific area, which could be “personal”, “business development” or “friends”.
6. Waiting for: I have a list of people I work with in order to assign tasks. Not all tasks are things you can actually do, some of them have to be assigned to someone else. Be sure not to forget these tasks just because they don’t depend directly on you. Sending an email containing a task for someone does NOT mean you have completed the task. You have to keep track of it until you are sure it has been done.

A I said, the tool you use is not important. It could be a very expensive software application to any paper system you like. But in my experience I’ve found that the more you like your tool the more you tend to use and respect it. So use nice looking apps, or elegant pens and papers.

There are some times when you just have to decide which project to pursue. You can’t just go for every project/opportunity you encounter on your way.
A project may be a new customer, an investment opportunity, a familiy project (such as re-painting your bedrooms) or an ordinary company project.

Simple enough, I have found pretty useful to use a Project Evaluation Model for all the cases above.

When choosing which project to go for, just have these elements clear:

- the criteria you are using to judge your project
- the importance you are willing to give to that specific criteria
- the score you assign for that criteria (low, medium, high)

This will create an easy to read table with some numerical evaluation of your project.
Of course, many situations need some personal thoughts and instinct.. but this could be a solid base on which to build your thoughts.

Download a sample Project Evaluation Model.

Meeting minutes are very often forgotten, or even worst, not considered to be important and therefore not taken.

This document is crucial for project success and for the work that should be carried on after the meeting has taken place.
It is an important document where all the outcomes of the meeting should be recorded for future consultation.
Also, every good meeting should be arranged only when a clear agenda is in place and when everybody has clear WHY the meeting is arranged and WHAT decisions should be made during the meeting. All this should be recorded in the minutes.

Moreover, every participant should have clear what are the next steps and what tasks these involve; these tasks should have a clear owner and deadline recorded in the meeting minutes.

Just as an example, here you will find the template I use for meeting minutes, which takes many inputs from the PRINCE2 standard methodology.