Looking for guidelines on avoiding draw by repetition

I had a slow 60 min game today where I won a knight on move 36 and the opponent had two minutes left on his clock. Both kings were defended by pawns and opponent started looking for a perpetual check using his Queen. I managed to survive a flurry of moves and trade off the Queens on move 57. Opponent had less than a minute left on the clock and it was King and three pawns versus King and knight and two pawns. I was also running a little low on time but had more than a couple of minutes. Pawns became locked and the opponent's king was moving back and forth extremely fast. Opponent had just 4 seconds left on his clock when I blundered by moving my king back to the same spot and the game ended in draw by threefold repetition.

I was trying to avoid a draw but there were many moves happening quickly and I found it hard to remember all of the positions that had been repeated once already. I can see with hindsight that there were many better moves in that game that I could have played. That game is done and I want to learn to avoid this situation happening again. 

Are there any good guides/tips for avoiding this late late disaster?

A draw might have been perfectly reasonable in that situation.

It might be easier to tell if you would post the game here.

I don't want a game analysis. I want general advice.

Well, as long as you can move a pawn or capture anything, there is no draw by 3 fold repetition.

I don't know what more concretely to say, but as for your game, perhaps you could've forced a zugzwang, if he only could move his king, and you had a free knight to waste a move. But of course, it depends on the position.

In a situation like that--with severe time pressure--I'd just keep track of what my K and N were doing. Since my opponent is surely trying for threefold, I'll just assume it will be threefold if bring my K or N to the same square three times. Depending on the specific situation, it might be worth sacing the N. That takes threefold off the board, at least for a while, and might slow down your opponent's thinking enough to win on time.