When the Change Does Not Hold
Most changes lapse within a month. The reasons are consistent and none of them is weakness, which matters because the usual response makes it worse.
You made one change, it worked for eleven days, and then it stopped. This is the normal course, and the diagnosis matters more than the resolve to try harder. Organisations asking the same question at team level can compare their process with read more here: define the purpose, make the record visible to the people in it, and interpret time data alongside finished work rather than on its own.
The four reasons
It was too big. Sized for a good day, so it fails on an ordinary one and then feels already broken.
It depended on other people who did not agree to it, and their behaviour reverted first.
It addressed a symptom. The block was displaced because the underlying load is too high, and protecting time does not reduce work.
Or it was never worth its cost — the change delivered less than it took, and you noticed correctly.
Four causes, four different responses, and none of them is discipline.
Diagnosing which
Look at the day it first failed. What was different about it? That is usually the cause, visible in a single instance.
If it failed on an ordinary day, it was too big.
If it failed when somebody else did something, it needed their agreement.
If it failed in a busy week, it was addressing a symptom.
And if you simply stopped caring, it was not worth its cost — which is a legitimate finding.
What not to do
Do not restart the same change harder. The second attempt fails faster than the first, and the accumulated failure makes the third unlikely.
Do not add a system to enforce it. An accountability mechanism on top of a badly sized change adds cost to something already unprofitable.
And do not conclude that you are bad at this. The change failed; that is information about the change.
The resize
Halve it and try once more.
Ninety minutes becomes forty-five. Every day becomes three days. No email before noon becomes no email before the first block.
A halved change that holds is worth several times an ambitious one that does not, and it can be grown later from a position of it working.
When the answer is that the load is too high
This is the commonest underlying cause and the least welcome.
No arrangement of hours fixes more work than there is time for, and personal technique applied to a structural overload produces exhaustion rather than improvement.
The evidence note on saying no covers what to do with that finding, and its own reference note covers what tracking cannot fix at all.
Letting it go
Some changes should be abandoned and the decision should be explicit.
Write down what you tried, what happened and why you stopped.
Which prevents the cycle of rediscovering the same idea every six months and treating each attempt as a fresh failure.
Trying again later
Circumstances change and a change that failed in March can hold in September.
Keep the list. Revisit it when something structural shifts — a project ends, a role changes, the children start school.
That is a better trigger than a new year.
What to check
Which of the four reasons killed your last lapsed change?
Was it sized for a good day or an ordinary one?
Did anybody else need to agree, and did they?
And is the underlying problem the load rather than the arrangement?
Halve it and try once more
Ninety minutes becomes forty-five, every day becomes three days.
A halved change that holds is worth several times an ambitious one that does not, and it can be grown from a position of it working.
Worth keeping in mind
Some changes should be abandoned and the decision should be explicit. Write down what you tried, what happened and why you stopped, which prevents rediscovering the same idea every six months as a fresh failure.
When the load is the cause
This is the commonest underlying reason and the least welcome.
No arrangement of hours fixes more work than there is time for, and personal technique applied to structural overload produces exhaustion rather than improvement. That finding belongs in a conversation about workload, not in another attempt at the same change. For a complementary perspective on work, measurement or planning, consult Google Workspace.