I think jimfleming covered what I was going to say really well, but I wanted to really emphasize that for this to work, you need to be maniacally consistent with using the system.
I use Asana, and just keep a tab open next to my inbox. Sure, having a todo list helped from the start, but it took probably 2-3 months of consistently putting everything (and their anticipated due dates) into Asana before I could really trust the system. Now that it's ingrained into my workflow, though, I know that anything I need to keep track of is there.
Once you get to that stage, it's like a whole different life -- seriously.
I think jimfleming covered what I was going to say really well, but I wanted to really emphasize that for this to work, you need to be maniacally consistent with using the system.
I use Asana, and just keep a tab open next to my inbox. Sure, having a todo list helped from the start, but it took probably 2-3 months of consistently putting everything (and their anticipated due dates) into Asana before I could really trust the system. Now that it's ingrained into my workflow, though, I know that anything I need to keep track of is there.
Once you get to that stage, it's like a whole different life -- seriously.