When the network is congested, looking at transactions is like watching a food delivery queue... Your transaction isn't actually lost after you send it; it just gets first placed in the mempool waiting. Miners/packagers usually prioritize the ones that pay more, so if you set a lower gas fee, your transaction can stay hanging forever. If you're lucky, it might get included in one or two blocks; if not, it could get stuck so badly you start doubting everything, or even get replaced or discarded.

Now, I mostly check how many pending transactions there are before interacting. During days when "push pressure anxiety" like unlocking or staking unlocks is repeatedly mentioned, the on-chain sentiment tends to get more congested. To put it simply, don’t try to compete head-on with the busy times: either wait until things calm down before sending, or just pay a higher fee for certainty. Otherwise, no matter how detailed your task list is, being stuck in the queue is just a waste of time.