One place, and why it should be boring
The tool that survives is rarely the best one. It is the one you already open for another reason.
Everybody who has looked for a system has had the week where the new app is wonderful. Everything goes in, the categories are right, the colours are correct. Three weeks later it is a museum of one good week.
The pattern is consistent enough to be a rule: the tool that lasts is the dull one that was already in your day.
Why novelty is the problem
A new tool asks for a new visit. Not a new habit — a new destination, and destinations are what get skipped when the day is full. The beautiful app is a place you must remember to go.
The boring one is already open. It is the mail you check anyway, the calendar the meetings land in, the notes app that is on the home screen. Adding something there costs nothing you were not already spending.
The two questions worth asking
Would I open this today even if I had nothing to put in it? If no, you will not open it on the day you have something, because that day is busier.
Can I add something in under five seconds, with one hand, from the lock screen? Capture is the only part that must be frictionless. Organising can be slow; it happens when you have decided to organise.
What boring does not mean
It does not mean bad, or ugly, or paper. It means low ceremony: no setup ritual before you can write a line, no choice of six fields for a thing you will delete tomorrow.
A system earns ambition over time. The first version should be embarrassing in its simplicity — a list and a date — because that is the version that is still running in March.