External drives & backup
The category nobody thinks about until the week they very badly need it.
What actually matters
- Two copies in one building is not a backup. One copy needs to be somewhere else, or in the cloud.
- An SSD is worth the extra over a spinning drive for anything you work from daily.
- Capacity you will not outgrow in two years costs very little more than capacity you will.
- A backup you have never restored from is a hypothesis. Test it once, deliberately.
Picks
No specific picks in here yet — I only list things once I've actually formed an opinion about them. The points above are what I'd go on in the meantime.
Also in keeping order
- OrganisationWhere things live, so you stop looking for them.
- Cable managementCheap, deeply satisfying, and it makes a desk photograph well.
- Notebooks, planners & whiteboardsFor the thinking that does not want to happen on a screen.
- Books & resourcesThe small-business reading that is actually worth the evening.
Kit is the easy part. The awkward part is usually the process.
Buying a label printer fixes an afternoon. If the thing eating your week is the admin around the orders rather than the packing itself, that's the part I build.
Tell me what's eating the week