If It Works, It Works
I spent my late teens and early twenties looking for the perfect system to manage my to-do list. GTD, Bullet Journal, you name it, along with a slew of software to go with them. When I tire of software, I moved onto perfectly curated, color-coded notebooks.
In the end, what sticks with me up till today is ridiculously simple. I have a commonplace book, which is a fancy name to say I have a physical notebook containing just about anything I throw in there. I write checklists and cross them. If I'm anywhere without the book or I need to jot down something real quick, I make a note on my phone. If it's in the future, I schedule reminder alarms and mark it on my calendar.
I'm embarrassed to say it's nothing like those uber-organized notebook pages you see on Pinterest. Today's tasks are right there below the storyboard I sketched for a game, and I can doodle a smile, a dog, a flower to go with them if I want. It's semi-chaotic, but it works for me. It's weird that in 2025 doodling freehand digitally along your notes is still an experience difficult to replicate properly. I find that the act of writing the tasks down longhand helps me remember what to do, and while reMarkable 2 looks very cool I have no interest to plunge that amount of money into this.
You might have guessed why all the other systems failed. I'm a tinkerer, and if the system has all the bells and whistles I'd be tempted into customizing the hell out of it, and soon the administrative task to determine a tag or category overtakes the practical sense. I also hate breaking streaks, so in systems where you have every day neatly labeled and sectioned off, one lapse is enough for me to get bummed out of it. (They also take a lot of, frankly, wasted space. I use cheap notebooks, but it pains me to use only half of the paper real estate). I also need something I could use brain dead, when I'm too tired to do anything (I should have saved the brainpower for the actual task).
Hey, if it works it works.