I love your little notepad thing, for me I tend to use just paper, bullet-journal style for some of my tasks, and TODO.md files inside the projects.
Just gotta try to not deviate much from the routine until the habit is internalized. In the past few months I managed to keep exercising 3-4 times a week, even on vacation.
New goal for the year is to do the same for my personal projects, but trying to keep it balanced with day-to-day work.