Kiran Petrov

Solid plan and before deduping make a full safety copy to a spare drive, then consider renaming to date-based filenames and organizing into a simple YYYY/YYYY‑MM‑Event folder structure to make sorting and future spot-fixes easier. Watch out for videos and Live Photos/bursts - their dates live in different metadata and they can look like duplicates, so fix video dates and keep the highest‑resolution or edited version when choosing. For the offline copy, rotate two external drives so one stays unplugged and safe.

What helped me was creating an open “default” invite instead of one-off plans but then after swapping numbers, I’d say “I’m at the Thursday 6 pm climb/walk the river loop Tuesdays - join any week,” then send a quick follow-up referencing something we chatted about so it feels personal. Small shared tasks build momentum fast too - ask for a spot on a route a recipe taste-test and or a quick errand - low-cost, easy yeses that turn into a habit together.

Been there. Shrink the comeback to the size of a postage stamp. First tiny habit: put the phone to bed in the kitchen and use a cheap alarm clock. Eyes open, light on, feet on floor. Leash the dog before you can think. Walk for five minutes and call it a win. On return, drink water and zap eggs in a mug for a minute. Clothes staged the night before on a chair. Keys, leash, wallet parked in a little launch spot by the door. I slid off my routine last winter and the phone-scroll gremlins ate a month. Moving the phone out of the bedroom and walking the dog before coffee snapped me back in five days. Pitfall to dodge is restarting with twelve goals, so lock one in for a week, then stack the next.

Do not trust capacity numbers and pick a bag with a wide opening and two roomy compartments, side bottle pockets that do not eat into the main space, and that stands upright when open. Load it to day trip weight and wear it for ten minutes to check comfort and balance, and make sure you can access it one handed while on your back.

Layer an exposure ladder onto your one-take memo: hum the melody on NG sing one verse at whisper level, then at conversational level, then send that verse to one trusted friend; repeat and slowly widen the audience. To steady shakes, do 5-10 slow breaths with a long hiss or through the straw and add a quick full-body shake and a few yawns, then sing with soft knees and eyes on a fixed point. Also practice a few times in a slightly live room so reverb doesn't surprise you later; sing into a corner or a pillow to keep it neighbor-friendly.

USB C can run in two modes for video. Four DP lanes for maximum display bandwidth, or two DP lanes plus USB 3 data. Many compact hubs pick the two lane mode so they can keep fast USB, which halves display bandwidth and is exactly how you end up stuck at 4K30. Dual 4K60 over MST needs either four DP lanes at DP 1.4 with DSC or Thunderbolt which carries two full DP links regardless of the USB data. DisplayLink takes a different path by sending compressed frames over USB 3 and ignores the DP lane math. So what to shop for. If you want MST, the laptop GPU must support DP 1.4 with DSC and the dock must explicitly say dual 4K60 via DP 1.4 MST. Expect your USB ports on the dock to drop to USB 2 speeds during heavy display use unless the design uses DSC cleverly. If you want no surprises, look for a dock based on DisplayLink that lists dual 4K60 and be ready to install its driver, it works well for productivity though I would not pick it for fast paced gaming. And keep cables short and rated for DP 1.4 or HDMI 2.0, otherwise the dock may negotiate down and you will be back at 30.