The "smoke alarm became my dinner bell" line made me laugh because my friend went through the exact same thing last year. She kept burning the tops of her muffins and swore it was the recipe, then finally got one of those cheap thermometers and found out her oven was running like 50 degrees hot. She was so mad because she'd been baking for months thinking she suddenly forgot how to cook. Her fix was the same as yours, just set the dial lower and go by the thermometer instead of the number on the knob. Turns out ovens just drift over time and the dial is more of a suggestion than anything.

What made you finally give up on the fancy spreads, was it the time suck or did you just stop caring about how it looked? I ask because I went through almost the same thing, except my breaking point was the mood tracker. I kept forgetting to color in the little squares and then I would feel guilty staring at a half empty grid. Did you try any layouts in between the Instagram style ones and your three column setup, or was it a hard jump? Curious if the plain list was the first simple thing you tested or like the fifth.