Implement check-in check-out on list items?

Question

I want to implement check-in/check-out functionality on a list in sharepoint 2010.

What I want is, when a person is updating a list item, no one else shuld be able to edit that particular item and when the update is complete it should behave normally.

How can I achieve this?

EDIT

Answer by C. Marius worked very well. I was thinkin of implementing it using Event Handlers, the way we block deletion of list items, can we do something like that?

Answer 1

You would need to enable versioning & content approval, via List/Library Settings. As soon as that is done you see in the bottom 2 more options:

1. To decide Draft visibility - make sure you choose the one stating "Only users who can Approve items (and the author of the item)"
2. !!!ONLY on Document Libraries!! - Option "Require Documents to be checked out before they can be edited" should be YES. This forces Check-Out on editing to ensure that as soon as someone is trying to make a change automatically it will check-out, therefore making it exclusively available for him only.

Answer 2

1. In your document library, select the check box next to each document you want to check out.

2. Click the Check Out button on the Documents tab of the SharePoint Ribbon.

3. Click OK at the confirmation prompt.

Answer 3

You could also enable inplace record declaration in the list settings. This turns each item into a record that cannot be edited / deleted by anyone. In order to do so, the item would have to be undeclared as a record.