I deal with a number of todo lists. When coding, I place sentinels throughout the source that typically look something like this:
//DAN-NOTE: do x, y, and z //DAN-CONTINUE: when picking up on this, consider these //DAN-DEBUG: get rid of this once done fixing blah
Then, when I want to run through all of my todo work, I just search the project for everything that starts with //DAN-. Alternatively, IDEs like Visual Studio have built-in tools to search for sentinels with the word todo. However, I only use that on large projects when the note is intended for anyone on the team.
When it comes to daily tasking, I have been utilizing Microsoft’s OneNote. It might seem fairly silly for a Product Manager to not use something more robust like Hansoft or Shotgun, but there are a couple reasons I do this:
- I’m not consistently developing with others right now.
- It is super-easy to add notes through my phone, tablet, and desktop.
There is nothing quite like being out-of-town, thinking of something I want to handle in the product, and having the peace-of-mind that it was captured.
Related to todo lists, I came across this Lifehacker article that covers strategies on pumping through your own todo lists.