Category lists are useless for deciding what to adopt. Sort by the work removed instead, and the shortlist gets short quickly.
Work: remembering
Commitment tracking, reminders that come back with their context attached, relationship notes surfaced right before you see the person. The win is not storage — you already have storage. It is retrieval at the right moment.
Work: triaging
Digests and labels. The measure of a good triage tool is how much it declines to show you. Anything that forwards everything has moved the pile, not reduced it.
Work: formatting and filing
Invoices named consistently, numbers appended to the right sheet, notes filed into folders you did not have to create. Boring, high-frequency, and the easiest thing to hand over completely.
Work: chasing
The highest-value and least-adopted category. Ask on Friday, follow up Monday, escalate after the second miss — with bounded waits so nothing chases forever.
Work: deciding
Do not delegate this. Delegate the assembly: everything needed to decide, in one message, with the sources attached.
The adoption test
A tool you have to remember to open is a tool you will stop using. The ones that last live where you already are — which, for most of the working world, is a messaging app.