I usually only have really bad things occur in threes. I do not wast time worrying about the fact that something bad is going to occur but instead I plan for it so that it is not as bad as it could have been. I also try to make sure that any work I got to do is done after the second thing so that the third will not waste any more of my time. When ever a sequence starts you should rework your system and ensure that you have backups for everything so that when the other things go wrong it does not matter. Logically you are best off with this principle: "if things can go wrong they will", "have backups and hope you will never need them", "the first thing to go wrong is always the last thing that could go wrong".

In other words, if you simply have a backup so that something can not go as wrong it usually will never go wrong on the simple fact that you are prepared for it. If you do not have a backup it will go wrong b/c you are not prepared for it.

Example: You have a big report due tomorrow, it is on your 3 drive raid 5 array so that you will still have it if a drive fails. A drive fails and you have no spare harddrives. A new one will not arrive until next week.