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There are to-do lists in outlook, but I find it does not me help much. So what I've done is to put "to do" jobs / appointments on the Sunday for the week that I think they should be done. Within those appointments you can update info, contraints, add pictures etc. I also colour code them for ongoing, called, scheduled, completed etc. This helps me for when I do the detailed scheduling for that week in question. Any that I don't schedule get moved over to the next sunday. You could easily adapt to monthly or every 2 weeks etc. I try to look at them periodically, but at least before I do the next of scheduling.
I hadn’t thought of that, once they are entered on the Sunday they can be dragged and dropped to where you are actually going to put them, that sounds like a plan.
Andy
I have started using a bullet journal Andy to migrate tasks
Relies on symbols , simple and effective so far
>> moves the task forward to the next day
I find it quicker than inputting info into my google calendar
Going back before computers, we simply kept a long hand list. Once we went over to a PC, I found Excel invaluable........and I have stood still for 20+ years!
Excel is easy to view, very flexible and you can set up your own style sheets which can be adjusted/carried over etc. I enter our accounts, records, analysis, estimating calculators and job sheets etc on Excel and a good old fashioned 'rainy day' spent setting up will be well worth it.
I hate Email. Unstructured, CC to all-and-sundry, gets accidentally deleted or rots at the bottom of the Inbox.
Personally I don't like Excel much either - easy to accidentally delete a row, over-type a cell, or have a Formula for totals that gets wrecked when a new row is inserted outside the scope of the formula ... whatever. Way too much out-of-sight-and-mind and very little in the way of usable "history" of changes in order to figure out what went wrong, after the fact.
I'm great at complicating things ... but with that said: I prefer an APP that has structured data. Customer / Job name & description / Customer's Priority and then I can add my own data for Estimated Hours and the Priority I assign it (e.g. for those customers who only have one Priority = YESTERDAY)
If the customer fills in a Form, rather than sending an Email for me to have to create the Job Record, so much the better. With a phone APP the customer can just take a photo of the "problem" and then type a description if the photo is not obvious, and add a priority if they want to.
Then I can have a list of Jobs, add my Estimated Time, and list them in geographic proximity, so I can choose the jobs I can do on Mon, Tue, ...
At any time Customer can review their list of recently done / not yet done / Expected Date
Put in Actual Hours when the job is done (or Arrive/Finished time and Mileage) and generate an invoice once the Job is marked as DONE.
Add to that the ability to have a "Ticket" for recurring jobs for a Client. Client can just tick the ones that need doing, or it can be "every fortnight until changed" (or they can phone / text / email and I'll tick their list on their behalf ...)
There ought to be an APP for that (but I don't know of one). I know such things exist for Building Maintenance on huge office block type sites, but I have never managed to find anything more suitable for smaller operators. I'd love to walk round the Home and Garden and just take photos of things that need doing and Tag them Gardner, Sparky, Decorator, Plumber ... and get on with something more productive than list shuffling.
P.S. I'm a software engineer by trade ...