Not sure about software to do it though, I find I’ll spend more time planning something out than actually doing it.

What is that?

Advantages:
* Spatial organisation. I think this is pretty key to it. If I have a certain project going on, I can scribble down stuff in one corner of the A3 area. I can always find another space for a clump of related stuff if needs be. I tend to have four main columns – Misc, and then one for each of the three projects I’m on.
* I can physically cross stuff out when it’s done. This is a very satisfying feeling and is probably the main reason I use a real live bit of paper. Especially if a task has been on there for months or years, and you finally get around to doing it.
* Independence from PC. Sometimes my PC is rebooting, crashing or whatever, and it’s a good time to take stock and look at what needs doing. The downside is the need to carry around the pad, but I do that anyway.
* Can invent own random symbology. I tend to put asterisks next to tasks that need doing that day. Little arrows next to tasks which *really* need doing that day, because I didn’t get around to doing them the day before when they had an asterisk. “TD&M” and various other acronyms which are meaningful to me, stating where I can look up further information about the task if I forget what I meant.
* Trivially easy to scribble down new stuff, which I agree, is the most important feature of any sort of organisational system.
* Overwhelmingly busy looking A3 page. If anybody comes to my desk, they *know* I’m busy.

Disadvantages:
* Need to copy it out every couple of weeks, when the A3 page becomes totally, completely choc-a-block. This is arguably a good thing as it means everything has to pass through your mind at least once a month. Quite often when copying it out I find that one or other task has become unblocked, and I can do it in a flash, and not bother copying it across.
* Sometimes forget what I meant. Usually each task is about four words long, which is usually enough, but sometimes not. This is a particular pain with e-mails for some reason – I guess often because you get lots of similar e-mails from one person about the same subject. I’ve recently taken to writing down the date/time the e-mail was received, in tiny writing, so I can uniquely identify it.
* I don’t have a separate system for long-term stuff that I might want to do one day in the future. Instead, this gets copied out dozens of times before I eventually do it, or it’s become so old and irrelevant that I strike it off. This doesn’t really bother me; it’s an incentive not to leave lots of old stuff hanging around.

Disadvantages you might expect, but that have never bothered me:
* Inability to refer to URLs, add extra notes, etc. etc.
* Lack of a separate “delegate” list. Instead, once I’ve successfully delegated something, I cross it out and write “Nag Vero” (or appropriate) next to it in small writing. I rarely have to come back to it, but again, each time I copy stuff out two weeks later, it goes through my brain enough to figure out if it’s been done.
* Lack of structure to tasks etc. Shrug!