What is the best way mark entries as featured?

In quite a few wordpress projects I have a request in which Projects (or other post type) have to be featured in the Portfolio page (or other listing page) instead of the default date sorting lists.

Usually i create a checkbox as a custom field, but then it is not easy to know what projects are marked in the admin edit page.

Creating a category would also be a solution, but I am not sure if it is a good practice to deliver a theme with predefined categories.

I also read about creating a archived post status, so that only 'published' entries would then be featured.

So, what do you think is the best way to achieve this?