Depending on how serious you want to take it. There is a website for stardew predictions, stardew checkup to help you know what’s missing, and a tool for planting to know when to harvest.
Lots of tools to plan.
I also keep a notepad open but I make notes. Important birthdays, which rarecrows I have, crop numbers and things needed, fish in looking for in particular seasons and weather.
I set my goals and work towards them.
I hate it too, I need it and hate it. But it is the standard and honestly if we all switched to whatever else, we would hate that too. The mechanism isn’t the problem, imo, it’s the requirement of maintenance and monitoring.