I've had issues with TODO list in the past, but settled on a combination of a Kanban board using Trello and Pomodoros, which works quite well so far. If anyone is interested, this is what we're doing:
Each Monday, we pull a week worth of tasks from the Backlog to the Weekly sprint. Each morning, we pull a day worth of work to the Daily goal. We separate Blocked, Actionable and non-Actionable (things that can't be worked on just yet, but aren't quite "blocked". those are usually the tasks that sit around with the rest of the actionable tasks, but ignored because for some reason there isn't much to be done about them). In the end of each sprint, we archive the "Done" list and start a new one. The numbers in the `()` are the estimated time, and we have bookmarklet [1] that sums it up for each list (for when we plan the weekly sprint).
Columns: Ideas -> Planned -> In Progress -> Deployed -> Client Review -> Done (week of x)
Ideas is: for new stories, unaccepted work.
Planned is: for stories the client has accepted as work.
In progress is: for work being currently worked on (also doubles as time tracking).
Deployed is: for stories that have been completed (tested & deployed).
Client Review is: for stories that the client has chosen to accept.
Done is for tracking completed work for that week, a new column is created at the start of the week.
Other conventions used are: Cards are in order, top of the list is the high priority. Blue label for blocked cards, orange for unconfirmed issues, red for confirmed issues.
Another thing used is Trello Points for estimations (a chrome plugin).
Yep trello is great! I use it too to help me amange all my work. Unfortunately since i am the junior-most dev at my office so haven't gotten everyone else to use it yet. but am working on it. i am sure my manager would love being able to just make a list for all the things that needs to be done and we'd figure out how to do it.
I like your board. I would like to give it a try. Could you explain difference between "Actionable" and "Daily Goal". Aren't all "daily goals" are "actionable" since you transferred them from "weekly sprint" or "backlog".
The "Actionable" list is actually better named "Weekly Actionable". Its the tasks in the weekly sprint that are currently actionable and can be worked on.
The reason we have that is that we noticed that many of the tasks in the weekly sprint aren't always "workable" and delayed for various reasons (waiting for another card to be finished, not relevant until the due date, still need some more refinement/feedback, etc), and that when I was scanning the weekly sprint for actionable tasks I had to keep ignore them manually, and they were just creating noise. They aren't quite appropriate for the "Blocked" list, so we created a separate list for the "actionable" tasks.
I would suggest you to just ignore that list, and see if you the need for something like that really arises with your workflow.
This is how our board looks like: http://i.imgur.com/LnD5a5H.png
Each Monday, we pull a week worth of tasks from the Backlog to the Weekly sprint. Each morning, we pull a day worth of work to the Daily goal. We separate Blocked, Actionable and non-Actionable (things that can't be worked on just yet, but aren't quite "blocked". those are usually the tasks that sit around with the rest of the actionable tasks, but ignored because for some reason there isn't much to be done about them). In the end of each sprint, we archive the "Done" list and start a new one. The numbers in the `()` are the estimated time, and we have bookmarklet [1] that sums it up for each list (for when we plan the weekly sprint).
[1] https://gist.github.com/shesek/5185168