Index cards and a pencil. I organize the cards into columns that represent calendar weeks (Thur-Wed), and I keep the next six weeks' worth of columns at all tim

Index cards and a pencil. I organize the cards into columns that represent calendar weeks (Thur-Wed), and I keep the next six weeks' worth of columns at all times. There's an additional column for "future" that holds everything with a date more than six weeks away. Stuff that doesn't have a date, but is a nifty idea to do in the future, gets put into a stack of future ideas. They're categorized. At any given time, I'm working on just a few ideas. When an idea is finished, I can take a new idea from the "future ideas" pile. In practice, I often know what I want to work on next and I don't look at the pile. Cards are estimated in terms of points. I know from experience how many points I can get done in a week. At the beginning of each week, I count up the estimates on the date-sensitive cards. If there's extra time available, I either pull forward cards that need to be done in the future or bring in cards that will progress one of my current ideas. Every day, I completely clear my inbox. Spam, no-response, and quick-response email gets taken care of immediately. Everything else gets turned into a card and put into the calendar. There's enough slack in my weekly budget that I can absorb these sorts of administrative tasks. When I finish a card, I mark it with a little sticky dot. At the end of the week, I bundle up the cards with a rubber band and put it in a cardfile. I also add up the total estimates and write down the ideas I was working on for future reference. That info gets put on another card, of a different color, that acts as a sort of "cover sheet" for the bundle. I don't need to do this, but it makes me feel a sense of progress. Been doing this for years and it works very well for me. It breaks down when I travel as I'm (a) busy and distracted, and (b) don't bring the cards with me, so I have trouble staying on top of my inbox.