I just put my back-yard list on Excel in December--the only hard part was reading my own writing.
I had a column for common name, for scientific name, a narrow one for notes, and a whole mess of the date I saw the bird, if I recorded that. (You might not care about the date, but my list is potentially more interesting for the migrants than the residents & breeders. Recording the dates gave me some long strings to the right for some species eg white-throated sparrow & nothing at all for the regulars eg robin.)
What headings do you want for your life list?
