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You can spend a very long time sharpening tools and never get round to the woodwork. An ordinary calendar used every day beats a beautiful one used in bursts, because the good comes from touching it repeatedly rather than from how well it was designed. Give yourself a cap on setting up, write the date the cap ends, and after that only fix things that actually broke while you were using it.
We shall show you the easy way (Quran 87:8). The plain, workable route is offered as a kindness, not as a compromise.
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of habit formation work found that repeating a behaviour in a stable setting increases habit strength, a route that does not depend on staying motivated. Keeping the system still is part of what makes the setting stable. The trials were about physical activity, and habit strength is not the same as your work getting done.
Haoming Ma; Aoqi Wang; Runyuan Pei; Meihua Piao (2023). Effects of habit formation interventions on physical activity habit strength: meta-analysis and meta-regression. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The benefit lives in using the same thing over and over, not in the design.
One question to keep in your pocket: if I skip this now, how will I feel about it on Thursday? Ask it at the door of the task, then move.
Do not save the treat for when the whole thing is finished. Put something small right after the awkward step: a coffee on the way back from the shop, a sit down once the taping is done.
You are allowed to decide not to write things down. What you cannot do is choose that and then be upset with yourself when you forget.