It is 3:47pm. You are not doing the task. You are looking for the place where the task became a task. The email says "as discussed". The document says "final_v4". Your browser has eleven tabs open and every one of them is technically relevant.
The tax nobody sees on the invoice
Every switch between a tab, a tool and a conversation asks the brain to rebuild the situation from nothing: who asked, what changed, what still needs a decision. That reconstruction is the tax. It does not show up in a timesheet, but it is most of why a simple task can eat an afternoon.
One real workflow
Trace an ordinary task end to end and it usually crosses four or five places: a message that raised it, a document that holds the detail, a tool that tracks the status, an email that confirmed a change, and a calendar invite that never got cancelled. Each crossing is a small rebuild.
Remove one crossing, not the whole stack
The fix is not one app to rule them all — that just creates a bigger system for someone to maintain. The fix is putting the decision and the next action beside the work, so the most expensive crossing disappears. One removed hand-off is worth more than a full re-platform.
You do not need one app to rule them all. You need one fewer place to remember what happened.