This worked really well for me at work. A new text file for each day, so I could explain what I did/plan to do during standup.
I struggle at home though. Because there's not as much pressure to do one task until it's done... so my text file gets forgotten about. Then I start a paper list. Then I forget that... rinse and repeat.
Except I create a new file for each new day, to have peace of mind (as opposed to having a million-line-long file). Instead of Ctrl+F, I use grep. The format is Markdown.
My typical TODO file has 3 sections: TODO, Pending, and DONE. If something is done for the day, I move it to the DONE section. When I create a new file for a new day, I copy over everything except the DONE section. The Pending section is for something I can't act on immediately (say, waiting for a coworker's response). I look there less often.
Every morning I also re-prioritize the items in the TODO section.
The only problem is that if I'm away from the work computer, I have to add items in a separate app on the phone (Notepad Free) and then manually copy them to the PC.
This system is something I naturally came to over those 7 years via trial and error, something that works well for me. I had other formats that didn't catch on.
Just my two cents.