Very true. Even making the digital physical (say, printing out an email and putting on a stand on your desk) can be blown off. I can certainly buy crappy tool

Very true. Even making the digital physical (say, printing out an email and putting on a stand on your desk) can be blown off. I can certainly buy crappy tools screwing up a process, though - much of my job is making existing tools less crappy and less disruptive to processes (or replacing them). The answer is probably to use simple tools - whatever gets the board or what you need in a convenient form without taking up much time. Stuff that doesn't have to be polished and that you determinedly don't spend much time tweaking and enhancing. I don't want to use pen and paper and a physical timer by my desk, but I don't need a "Pomodoro Technique(tm) Management System" when I can just use org-mode and a little timer script.