This may be only tangentially related, but I've lately been putting a pretty big focus on making my systems require as little effort as possible to maintain, because I'm more likely to keep using them even if I'm busy. For example, I used to fill out a fairly detailed planning template for the day and then track what went well/badly at the end of it. About three weeks later, I was fairly tired at night and didn't fill out my tracking stuff. Predictably, that system never really got used again -- it demanded too much of me for what I got out of it.

Right now, the main systems that I use are Anki and GTD. Anki's super easy to maintain -- all I have to do is click the 'Review' button and answer the cards, and I don't have to be creative at all. Having an in-basket, a few Next Actions lists, and a Reference folder doesn't exert much of a toll on me effort-wise but enormously reduces the hassle of finding lists and particular bits of information when I need them.

Conclusion: I try to stick with systems that don't take much effort to maintain, but are incredibly useful. I don't think that I'm as likely to keep up with more-effortful systems, even if they're very useful.

That happens to me all the time. Whenever I try to create a new habit, it starts well but by the time the habit is supposed to stick and enter in "auto mode" usually one of these things occur: a) I get bored/lose motivation and kick the habit or b) some new commitment/requirement appears and takes place over my new habit.

In the second case it's like my mind can juggle with a limited amount of balls and when a new ball comes into play, another ball must fall (sometimes even the rest of the balls altogether). I find this frustrating and demotivating. Feels like running in circles.

This year, for example, I've been trying to exercise regularly. Right now I'm like in my forth attempt. For the first one I went running 3 times a week for 6 months but then a "convergence of bad events", as you rightly named it, crashed my habit (if it ever became indeed a habit). The following two attemps lasted shorter, everytime something seemed to get in the way.

I'm starting to think that maybe a strict routine isn't the right choice for everyone and that perhaps I should seek for fixing the problem in the big scheme of things and not focusing so much in a particular solution.

I'm with Nathan. In addition, I can't stick with a routine to save my life. That part of my brain, the part that does things the same way because that's how we've done them before--- seems to be completely missing.

I think (I'll be honest, I *hope*) that is is because I stay in the moment, constantly assessing what I will do/am doing. I know this is direct opposition to your philosophy of preventing decisions by way of routines and checklists. I've tried that, off and on (because a checklist is the only way I've ever found to even REMEMBER a routine) but I'm not a fan, because I cannot build enough flexibility into them to make them work for me, AND, like Nathan states, time tracking doesn't give me enough benefit for the effort it takes.

I'm not entirely happy with this, simply because I don't have the same lovely charts that you do about what I did, what was accomplished, and where I need to focus my attention. But, I do have reveries, well-springs of fascinating lines of thought, and more ideas to share than I could ever fully convey. When I'm doing all the nice time-tracking, productive things, my life feels bland and static. This way, I'm not exactly barn-storming, but I am enjoying myself, and I feel mostly content, tinged with just enough curiosity and dissatisfaction to keep testing my theories.

So, I'm not optimized, but I'm still in the top 80%, i think. :)

I wouldn't call the events "bad." To the extent word choice matters, calling an event bad blames things outside oneself and allows a person desiring change to give up responsibility. I might call them unforeseen events, which implies more preparation would help or, in my experience more effective, finding a resource with more experience, like a mentor, book, or friend, who can help get you back on track.

More importantly, successful people use any type of event to help improve their lives. If they want to lose weight but five events happen within a week to take them off track, the most successful people realize larger issues of how they have to change more about their lives than they thought, or something like that. Then they change more and become more successful.

Such a person wouldn't see an event as bad, just another opportunity for growth.

If your tweaked back leads you to sit on the couch for the rest of your life living on government disability checks, you'd probably call the tweak bad. If it leads you to reevaluate your priorities and revise your fitness goals to accommodate the occasional tweak and achieve goals that are better for you, you might refer to your tweak as lucky.

Money Quote:

>>I wonder if it would be possible to have presence of mind in the first day or two of a converge hitting you, and to write down everything you working on, how it was going, and what it was like? Maybe it’d be possible to use that like a manual for getting back on track things clear up.<<

Just like you (hopefully) backup your digital data on a regular basis, it's far easier, and more realistic to continually backup your life data than it is to hope to remember to do so when an actual crisis or convergence of bad events hits.

In a law firm, you get half a dozen or more different projects, each containing a multitude of discreet tasks, thrown at you at any one time. It's impossible to keep track of all the ideas floating around your head if you don't write things down. It's very helpful to write a quick note at the end of the day about what you were working on/thinking about last, steps you were thinking about taking next, etc. Takes a minute, but can save hours in duplicated effort the next day.

My friends and I would refer to that phenomenon as a 'ShitStorm', and yeah,
stuff happens.
'When Bad things happen to Good People' might be worth a read.