Billionaire Sir Richard Branson's head-scratching 1972 to-do list

Billionaire business mogul Richard Branson has uncovered this to-do list from 1972.

British billionaire Richard Branson was determined to succeed from a young age - and he's got the hard evidence to back it up.

The eccentric head of Virgin, currently worth an estimated $US5 billion, has shared a to-do list he'd unearthed that he wrote in 1972, when he was just 22 years old. It was the same year he launched Virgin Records, but before he spun the iconic Virgin name into everything from an airline to a mobile phone company.

Here's what was on Branson's to-do list on November 6, 1972:

Branson says he was determined to succeed from a young age - here's the proof. Photo / News.co.au

That list in full:

1. Learn to fly

2. Look after me, you, boat

3. Entertain everybody with me

4. Invite nice people back

5. Start getting the small house together at The Manor

6. Start buying odds and sods for The Manor

7. Work with me on projects/sort me out

8. More shops to be found

In a post on Virgin.com, Branson said that "the bullet points range from lofty ambitions like learning to fly and opening more Virgin Records stores, to inviting people around and buying bits and pieces for our record studio The Manor."

Branson said he'd long been a vocal champion of the importance of writing lists, arguing they are an important goal-setting tool.

Sure enough, soon after Virgin Records launched (from its homebase of 'The Manor'), and in 1973 released musician Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album - a 9 x platinum-selling hit that became one of the biggest albums of all time. Branson's burgeoning business empire was up and away.