Editor's First Choice – really handy tool.

This plugin works and is on the right track – but is for pages only.

Amazingly, until now*, no simple plugin seen that shows a compact meta box on the dashboard for recently modified posts – of every status.

Until now we’ve been using:
– The WP Recent drafts metabox (Clunky)
– CodePress Admin Columns pins (good but too many steps)
– MindValley ‘Show Last Edited’ (works but shows up on post editor page, not dashboard)
– CMS Tree Page view (Excellent – unless you have heaps of posts you are working on at once – then the mousing around is unviable)

*The solution that renders all of the above obsolete? Try:
http://www.christianschenk.org/projects/wordpress-dashboard-helper-plugin/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/recenlty-modified-admin-dashboard/