My todo apps are empty and it isn’t a discipline problem. It’s a location problem. The reason nothing lives in them is that they’re a separate place I have to remember to go, and I never naturally go there. The thinking happens somewhere else.
So the rule I keep relearning: the system has to live where you already think. If the steering happens in conversation, the tools have to be in the conversation too. The moment something requires you to context-switch into an app you don’t already live in, you’ve lost. Not because you’re lazy, but because attention doesn’t travel there.
This is why most tools I set up with excitement go cold. They were good tools in the wrong location. Build the thing where the attention already is, and you barely have to be disciplined at all.
Is your system where you already are, or somewhere you keep meaning to go?