Need to rely on 3rd-party programs/notebooks to gather

[Lexia]

How are they hard to find? They spawn in the same spot at the same times and they not hard to gather if you have the stats needed.

[PirateCat]

How are they hard to find?

They're not, assuming you've memorized when they spawn. I have, personally, for a lot of the common ones (need astral silk? Do MIN favors in Mists and BTN favors in Hinterlands, collect astral moraine at CWH at 5 AM and seventh heavens in Mists at 5 PM) but an in-game notation feature would be helpful for people who haven't gotten there yet and for the ones you don't need to go for all that often (I feel like getting back into relic crafts. When did cypress logs pop again?)

In the immortal words of Henry Jones Sr.: "I wrote it down so I wouldn't have to remember!"