When you are on top of your affairs, life is smoother and easier to manage and plan.
When you get behind in your affairs, everything seems harder to cope; life seems much more complicating and frustrating.
So the key is to act on your affairs before they act upon you. You then become ahead of the game.
If you cannot do that and you are acted upon then you need to step up to catch up. Also, you need to be responsive to your demands instead of being reactive. The reaction is usually a knee-jerk approach and a short term quick fix which is not thought through and will come back to you in much worse condition. The response is more measured allowing you the space to catch up so you have a much more sustainable outcome.
My late colleague Dr. Stephen Covey would call this “Be Proactive” or the first habit of highly effective people.