For the longest time I have been using my own ToDo List. I started with a simple Excel table and added features over time. You can find an Excel 2003 version here. A lot of it depends on some relatively simple VBA macros, but it's gotten quite powerful over time.
Here are some basic thoughts behind what I have now:
- Excel is almost universally installed on any machine. As I am working as a consultant and am usually on-site at a customer and have to use the machine I was provided with, a custom program was not an option.
- There may be some good online choices by now, but the beginnings of my sheet are much older than prevalent internet access, and using the internet is tricky at most customers. For example, some have strange browser versions, blocked sites, inability to add plug-ins, lack of rights for code execution etc.
- The style of list has been influenced by David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology (even if I didn't know that when I started). So I tend to have a lot of "small" todos (like call person x, small coding tasks), rather than humongous items (implement new data warehouse) that follow me around for a long time.
- My own ToDo list gives me the ultimate flexibility. When I want some feature, I can add it. Usually, this is not very critical to using the sheet, so I can add the things in on my own schedule .. and I enjoy playing with code. So it's a little fun thing for me which gives me quite a bit of satisfaction.
If you enjoy tinkering with code as well, this series of posts (tagged ExcelToDo) might be for you. If you just want to use the sheet, that's fine with me as well (but remember that it doesn't come with any warranty).
Here's a short overview of the posts describing the Excel ToDo list:
The code is described in the following posts:- Automatically updating a changed item
- Calculating the relevance
- Updating the AutoFilter
- Sending an EMail
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