A new laptop arrived with a built-in 512 GB solid-state drive. It had already been split at the factory into two partitions: 200 GB for drive C and roughly 270 GB for drive D.
Based on years of using Windows 10, my instinct was that a 100 GB system drive should be enough, as long as Office and the few programs that insist on living on C were the only things installed there. So 200 GB for C looked wasteful. I deleted D and repartitioned the disk: 120 GB for C, 250 GB for D to hold software, and 100 GB for E to keep work-related files. The reason I left 120 GB instead of 100 was simple: Windows 11 has that extra “1” compared with Windows 10, and in my experience every Windows upgrade makes the system a little more bloated.
After the partitions were arranged, I installed the usual programs and moved both software and My Documents to D. Then I looked at C and found less than 60 GB free. Half of the system drive was gone before I had really started using the machine. That immediately felt unsafe. Should I resize C again and make it larger? What if it ran out later? Once more software had been installed, changing the layout would become even more annoying. Should I disable virtual memory? Should I turn off System Restore?
So I bought another 1 TB solid-state drive, moved the work drive onto it, and divided the original disk again: 200 GB for C and 270 GB for D. That felt much more secure. But after several days of use, C still had not expanded rapidly. It remained around 60 GB used, leaving nearly 140 GB empty. In other words, if I had left it alone, 120 GB probably would have been enough. Before I started all this, a friend who works in network administration had already told me that a 120 GB system partition was perfectly adequate and not worth wasting time over. He was probably right.
My old computer had one solid-state drive and one mechanical hard drive. I kept work files on the mechanical drive because I had heard that even if a mechanical drive failed, the data was more likely to be recoverable. The new computer has only two solid-state drives, which brought a new worry: what if one of them suddenly died and all the work files disappeared?
That led to another round of research: how to back up files in real time between the two drives. Plenty of software claims to do it, but some of it costs money and some of it has various problems. I asked the same network-administration friend again. He said, “Just use Baidu Netdisk. Why spend so much energy on this?”
I objected that Baidu Netdisk’s real-time backup might overwrite local files with cloud versions. What if the newest version got overwritten, especially for files I edit constantly? He said I could manually back things up to the cloud. I said that was what I used to do, but whenever I got busy, I often forgot.
After abandoning the idea of real-time backup between two local drives through software, I continued digging into Baidu Netdisk and found that it actually has two different functions: one called automatic backup and another called sync space. Automatic backup is one-way, from local storage to the cloud. Sync space is the two-way version. What I needed was only automatic backup, because it would handle incremental backups on its own.
Once I figured that out, I also realized something else: my work files are not quite as irreplaceable as I had imagined. Even if an occasional file failed to back up, the consequences would not be catastrophic. Besides, solid-state drives do not fail that easily.
Windows 11, meanwhile, seems to have its own collection of flaws. Edge sometimes appears to freeze. Word can freeze when calling the printer during printing. Other software occasionally hangs in similar ways. I spent half a day searching online for solutions, and the main method I learned was to uninstall recently installed software one by one until the freezing stops.
That approach does not suit me. Every program I installed is something I need. None of them can be removed. Once I accepted the position that I would not uninstall anything, the freezing suddenly seemed less serious. It is only a temporary freeze, not a complete death. Wait ten seconds or so and it usually recovers, and it only happens occasionally.
During that process, I disabled and adjusted many settings. If the freezing becomes more frequent later, those settings may become suspects. The frightening part is that I have already forgotten exactly what I changed. Maybe it would have been better to keep a record of every adjustment.
This habit does not only appear when dealing with computers.
A friend once brought up the question of justice and legitimacy in the Russia-Ukraine war. I was preparing to begin with European history, the development of Russia, the evolution of Christianity in Europe and Russia, Russia’s relations with European countries over the last four centuries, and especially the relationships formed during and after World War II.
Before I could really get started, my friend shifted the conversation elsewhere. Only then did I realize I had been preparing far too much detail. What he wanted to know was probably just whether my position matched his, and which country I supported. I should have stated the conclusion, not laid out the entire chain of reasoning.
A while ago, a blood test showed elevated uric acid. Today I went back for a recheck, mainly to put my mind at ease. The test cost only four yuan. Because it was so cheap, I guessed it might be like a home glucose meter: a quick fingertip blood test with a rapid result. But when the nurse drew blood, she still prepared to take venous blood.
I reminded her, wondering whether there had been a mistake. Was it really not a fingertip test? Was four yuan enough to cover both the blood tube and the lab testing? The nurse replied that maybe it was not enough, but the government might be subsidizing it.
Later I thought about it again. Whether four yuan covers the cost has nothing to do with the nurse. Why did I need to add to her work? Drawing blood is already busy enough without having to entertain unnecessary conversation.
This year, many clients are not doing well. Costs are rising, cash is tight, and they need more consulting support than before. When business is bad, employees seem to feel a stronger need to demonstrate their value. They act more responsible, more occupied, more indispensable. As a result, they consult me about all kinds of questions more often than in previous years.
I understand their companies’ cost pressure and funding pressure. I also understand the employees’ need to show that they are creating extra value. So I try to answer their questions as fully as I can.
Then the compulsive part of my personality takes over again. For a client’s question, I look up materials myself, ask colleagues, and consult friends in the industry. Eventually both colleagues and friends become afraid of being asked, because many technical questions cannot even be answered clearly by people in technical roles.
The clients also seem to become intimidated by my detailed replies. For a single question, I might send them several pages of explanation along with reference materials. In the end, they may be frightened by the volume of information. Cross-industry learning is always painful. Their purpose in asking may not be to truly understand the issue, but simply to prove their own value to the company.
This kind of compulsion keeps pushing me to spend energy on details, even on details that do not matter. In daily life, it wastes a great deal of time. At work, it costs time, adds anxiety, and can even wake me from sleep with the sudden thought of how to answer a client’s question.
Life and work were never meant to be flawless or perfectly complete. Forcing them to be perfect is how a tendency becomes a compulsion. Yet this mindset is not easy to overcome. Being naturally thick-skinned and carefree may be the built-in immune system against obsessive thinking. If one is not born with it, perhaps it has to be learned later. In that sense, there is something worth learning from people who seem a little rough around the edges.