I saw a lot of people sharing this list of 40 pieces of work/life advice for a good reason: It’s good advice. Especially the first bit when it applies to work: Most decisions are reversible or have a brief shelf life if you choose. It is better to do something and get started because you may or may not waste time reaching your goal, whereas you will definitely waste time dithering on a decision.

And number three. Carolyn Hax always talks about how you can choose to see people in a neutral light rather than assuming ill-intent, and when you do, you realize how often someone’s decision is all about them and not about you at all. There was nothing you could have done to get a different response, and their decision says nothing about who you are.

And number fifteen. Especially re-reading your journal. That feels more like the point of the blog than people reading the words now. I love looking back at what I thought at other stages of life.

And thirty-nine. You can learn a lot about yourself and what you want/need by sitting with those uncomfortable reactions.

What spoke to you?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

I didn’t realize that I had feelings about sharing food at restaurants until I read this newsletter essay about sharing food at restaurants.

I am team not sharing. If I order X, I want X and do not want to feel like I also have to try or eat Y. I mean, yes, I’ve gone into situations where I plan with another person to split our two meals so we could each have half of the other option. But unless I’ve done that, I’m not inclined to choose X off the menu and then have someone tell me when it gets to the table that they’re going to take half of X, and in exchange, I can have half of Y (something I likely didn’t want).

So are you team sharing-is-caring or team I-ordered-what-I-wanted-to-eat?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

I am not a good photographer, and I don’t currently have a camera, but I love pictures, and I use my phone daily. I promised myself that I would learn some skills — how to better use the tool I have, how to frame the image, etc — between now and the end of summer. If you have advice (remember – I only have a phone as my camera), please pass it my way.

I’m starting with these 20 tips if you want to learn with me. I’ve set the video to start at the tips (about 11:15 minutes into it).

I went from making no plans to see the eclipse — despite everyone I know having solid plans to see the eclipse, so it wasn’t as if it wasn’t on my radar — to asking Josh if he could come home from work early because we really need to see this eclipse. This meant digging through the drawers to find our old eclipse glasses from 2017 and writing frantic texts to the kids about how they need to procure new eclipse glasses.

Ha — though with the 2017 eclipse, I talked about having seven years to do things better. Forgot that memo until this week.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Finding a Different Path writes about separate waiting rooms because it really is the best idea in the world. (Though, side note, I got tea on my computer for laughing during this line: “I guess because I didn’t ‘fess up to shaving my bellybutton? WTF.” If that doesn’t get you to click over, I don’t know what will.) She unpacks many different offices and finally ends up somewhere good. But it highlights what offices and doctors need to do differently and what they get right.

Lastly, A Blank New Page talks about a conversation with a 93-year-old woman who asks if she has children. The woman also did not have children and shares her feelings about it. She writes, “How calmly she asked me this question back then. How calm her own comment on it was. And how liberating it felt for me, how good, how accepted, understood and yes – how calm I felt.” Love this.

The roundup to the Roundup: Eclipse! Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 29 – April 5) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.

Just because it is the oldest request in the world, and we have been talking about this on blogs for at least 18 years and on bulletin boards before that (so… no… People magazine. This isn’t an original idea), it’s still worth talking about: separate waiting rooms at the OB/GYN for pregnant vs. non-pregnant patients.

I was trying to come up with other situations where separating people would be compassionate (as opposed to the pediatrician’s office, which separates sick kids from wellness visits to lessen the spread of germs), where the reason for the visit would be common enough that many people would be impacted daily vs. an individual situation.

Would it be equally awful to be shunted to a different waiting room? To watch some people go into one room and feel even more left out, knowing that this is your waiting room for the time being, with the desire to be in the other waiting room? In protecting people’s feelings, would we inadvertently create different, equally terrible ones?

Those were my thoughts over the last 18 years of thinking about this.