As a Project Manager, I have a long list of Tasks. I can use Microsoft To-Do, Planner, or something else. I decided to create my own, and for that purpose I use Microsoft Lists. Let us say that I need these fields:
- Task Name
- Person to consult (e.g. who can help me to fulfill the Task, or have additional information)
- Due Date
- Project Name
- Status (TO-DO, Doing, Done, Urgent)
- Comment
I will create new TO-DO list from the scratch:

and:

Now I will setup some basic things, like List name, Color, Icon:

and I landed here:

I have, by default, one Column (Field) called Title. I will rename it to Task Name:

and:

OK, now I will add column named Person to consult:

I choose single line of text, and I get:

and:

So, I do not have to put a value in this field.
Now, I will add column called Due Date:

and:

So, I will need to enter Due Date every time, and Time will not be displayed.
Now I will create Project name field in a same way as I created the Person to consult (and it will be required), and I will get:

Now I will create Status field and it will be populated with:
- TO-DO (default)
- Doing
- Done
- Urgent

and:

Now, I want, to change colors for choices:
- TO-DO (I will leave as is)
- Doing (Yellow)
- Done (Green)
- Urgent (Red)

After I do it for all choices I will get:

Finally, I will choose TO-DO, as default value:

Finally, I will add Comment field, like a Multiple line of text:

OK, I will now add some rows (in grid):

This is just a simple example hot to create a list. Of course there are much more possibilities which goes beyond of scope of this article.
List is very powerful tool, which I use very day, and it is much more simple and user friendly than old SharePoint List.