In my experience, all systems fail without outside pressure and/or right nutrition and exercise. If I eat a lot of carbs and in general, gain fat and dont exercise I get nothing done. Eating ketoish and exercising every 2/3 days and I get a lot done.
Thinking about work as loops is the right idea, I do agree. Human brains slowly accomodate new thought-patterns and one must continously keep at them to make them appear easy. Any time I come back after vacation I feel immediate exhaustion and repulsion towards programming even though it's easy to me. You just lose the familiarity.
Anyway, I write tasks down as well although my system is just a webapp I built for myself. It's interesting I built it as hacky prototype but I've never come around finishing it even though I've been using it somewhat regularly for 5 years or so. Or I write down things on paper.
The least ceremony required for the process, to me, seems is the only long-term solution. But I appreciate this another take on it.