How I got my monthly layout down from 90 minutes to 25

I started bullet journaling back in February mainly to track work deadlines and my water intake. For months my monthly spread was this big painted thing with boxes and washi tape, took me close to 90 minutes every first Sunday. Then last month I read a random comment on here about just using a simple vertical list with tiny habit dots next to each day. I stripped it all down, no colors, no drawings, just a ruler and a black pen. The first time I finished the whole month in 25 minutes I actually sat back and laughed out loud. What's weird is I feel like I remember my appointments better now too, probably because less fuss means I actually look at the page. Has anyone else found that going plain and basic made their journaling stick better than the fancy stuff? Just curious if it's just me or something about the simplicity actually working.