Once you already have a video idea, what tools do you use to develop it into a more structured outline?

For me, I usually start with a blank sheet of paper and write down whatever points come to mind. I try to keep it loose at first so I don’t interrupt the flow of thinking. Then I gradually organize those points into a rough structure before I actually start making the video.

I’m curious what other people use for this stage.

Pen and paper? Google Docs? Notion? Obsidian? Mind maps? PowerPoint? AI tools?

And what does your process usually look like from “I have an idea” → “I have a usable video outline”?

I currently have a few hundred Markdown notes sitting directly in the root of my Obsidian vault.

They cover all kinds of unrelated topics, and I mostly organize/navigate them through links between notes rather than folders.

As the number of notes keeps growing, I'm wondering whether I should start creating subfolders and moving notes into categories.

For people who have been using Obsidian for a long time:

• Do you organize most notes into folders, or keep a relatively flat structure?
• At what point did folders actually become useful?
• Does having hundreds or even thousands of files in the root cause any practical problems?
• If links/search already work well, is there any real reason to reorganize everything?

I'm especially curious whether people who started with a flat structure eventually regretted it, or whether folders mostly just make the file tree look cleaner.

I’m curious about people whose main insomnia problem is waking up too early, rather than difficulty falling asleep.

For example, I usually fall asleep pretty easily, but wake up earlier than I want and usually can’t get back to sleep.

Has anyone with this type of insomnia tried sleep restriction therapy / CBT-I?

Did it actually help you sleep later or reduce early awakenings? And how long did it take before you noticed improvement?

I’d especially like to hear personal experiences, including whether it got worse at first before getting better.

I'm curious what other new/small YouTubers are using for their video workflow — recording, editing, audio, thumbnails, scripts, etc.

My setup is extremely simple right now:

• PowerPoint for making slides
• OBS studio for recording
• Microsoft's built-in video editor ClipChamp for editing
• That's basically it

I don't pay for any software or subscriptions for making videos.

What does your setup look like?

Which tools do you use for:

• Video editing
• Audio recording/editing
• Thumbnails/graphics
• Screen recording
• Scripts or planning
• AI tools, if any

And which ones are free vs paid?

I'm especially curious whether paid tools actually made a noticeable difference for you, or if free tools are enough when you're starting out.

Earlier this year, my A1c came back at 5.7%.

I’d heard “walk after meals” for years—from my parents and from doctors. I knew it was good advice, but it never really changed my behavior.

Then I wore a CGM for two weeks.

My breakfast is usually the same: oatmeal, milk, and protein powder. I compared days when I took a 10–15 minute walk after breakfast with days when I didn’t.

Blue = 10–15 minute walk within 30 minutes after breakfast. Orange = no walk.

In my small dataset, the average rise from pre-meal glucose to peak was:

• No walk: +34 mg/dL
• 10–15 min walk: +22 mg/dL

Not a controlled experiment, of course, and CGMs aren’t perfectly accurate. But seeing the difference in my own glucose changed my behavior in a way generic advice never did.

Now I walk after breakfast almost automatically. I don’t need a goal, reminder, or much willpower anymore.

That was probably the biggest thing I learned from using a CGM: the data made an abstract health recommendation feel concrete and personal.

It also made me start thinking in small experiments instead of trying to overhaul everything at once: walk after a meal, change a portion size, compare different foods, and see what actually matters for me.

I documented the full two-week experiment here:

https://youtu.be/V3ZyJdcdAgA

For those of you using a CGM: did seeing your own data actually change any of your habits?

I’m pretty new to YouTube and trying to understand how impressions work for a small/new channel.

This video has been up for almost a week, but YouTube has only given it 19 impressions. The impressions CTR is 31.6%, which seems quite high.

So I’m a little confused: if the people who do see the thumbnail on YouTube seem to click it, why is YouTube barely testing it with more impressions?

Is this normal for a new/small channel? Does YouTube sometimes need much more time/data before it starts testing a video with a larger audience?

I’m especially curious what your impressions looked like during your first few videos.

I’m still pretty new to making YouTube videos, and I’m trying to figure out how much effort I should actually put into thumbnails.

For those of you who have been doing YouTube for a while: how important have thumbnails been for your views / CTR?

And more specifically, how do you usually make them?

Do you:

• design them yourself in Photoshop/Canva/etc. and spend quite a bit of time tweaking them?
• use templates and just change the text/images each time?
• use AI to generate a thumbnail based on the video topic/content?
• use AI to generate the initial idea/image, then manually edit it?

I’m especially curious whether AI-generated thumbnails actually work well in practice, or whether they tend to look too generic / “AI-ish.”

For a small/new channel, how much time would you personally spend on a thumbnail compared with making the actual video?

Would love to hear what your workflow looks like.

The peak increase ranged from only +23 mg/dL to +68 mg/dL.

https://preview.redd.it/39ufgs3i3cjh1.png?width=1901&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ee7b00a78afb2cc0a080482313327549c7348e4

Here are glucose peak increases for these meals:

• Chicken + chickpeas + cabbage + pistachios: +23
• Instant noodles + fish/eggs/vegetables: +31–41
• Chicken nuggets + apple: +60
• Pasta + beef: +68

The pasta surprised me the most. I had assumed that if the carb counts were similar, the glucose responses would at least be somewhat similar.

After looking at my CGM data, I’m starting to think of carb count as more of a starting point than a prediction. The type of carbs and what I eat with them seem to matter a lot.

I plotted the full CGM curves and explained the comparison here if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/mArqUz1480U

I just started a new YouTube channel and have uploaded 2 videos so far.

What surprised me is how low the impressions are. YouTube seems to be showing the videos to only 17 people for 2 videos in total, so there isn't even much data yet to tell whether the thumbnails/titles are working.

I wasn't expecting lots of views right away, but I thought YouTube would at least test the videos with a somewhat larger audience.

For a brand-new channel with only 2 videos, is this completely normal?

Does YouTube usually need more uploads/time before it starts giving videos more impressions, or could very low impressions already suggest that something is wrong with the topic/title/thumbnail?

Would love to hear what your first few videos looked like in terms of impressions.

The peak increase ranged from only +23 mg/dL to +68 mg/dL.

https://preview.redd.it/hcktu9nru0jh1.png?width=1901&format=png&auto=webp&s=82b50dac6af8244d391f47adb06fe6679e8e2c0d

Here are glucose peak increases for these meals:

• Chicken + chickpeas + cabbage + pistachios: +23
• Instant noodles + fish/eggs/vegetables: +31–41
• Chicken nuggets + apple: +60
• Pasta + beef: +68

The pasta surprised me the most. I had assumed that if the carb counts were similar, the glucose responses would at least be somewhat similar.

After looking at my CGM data, I’m starting to think of carb count as more of a starting point than a prediction. The type of carbs and what I eat with them seem to matter a lot.

I plotted the full CGM curves and explained the comparison here if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/mArqUz1480U

Earlier this year, my HbA1c came back at 5.7%, right at the threshold for prediabetes.

My doctor suggested that I pay more attention to diet and exercise, and I ended up wearing a CGM for two weeks because I wanted to see what was actually happening with my glucose.

One thing surprised me: the CGM changed my behavior more than years of advice ever did.

For years, my parents had told me to walk after meals. Doctors had told me to walk more too.

I knew it was good advice. But I already exercised regularly — mostly swimming and strength training — so another 10–15 minute walk after breakfast never seemed that important.

“Walking is good for your health” was also too abstract. I understood it intellectually, but I couldn’t really see what one short walk was doing.

While wearing the CGM, I decided to compare it for myself.

My breakfast is pretty consistent: oatmeal, milk, and protein powder.

On some days, I walked for 10–15 minutes within 30 minutes after breakfast. On other days, I didn’t.

In my small dataset, the average increase from my pre-meal glucose to the post-meal peak was about:

No walk: +34 mg/dL
10–15 min walk: +22 mg/dL

The four-hour average wasn’t very different, but the post-meal peak was clearly lower on the days I walked.

Blue = 10–15 minute walk within 30 minutes after breakfast. Orange = no walk.

This obviously wasn’t a controlled experiment. I had only a small number of observations, I didn’t control every variable, and CGMs have measurement error. I’m not saying everyone will get the same numbers.

But seeing my own data was enough to change something.

After that, I started walking after breakfast almost automatically.

I didn’t make a strict schedule or set a daily goal. I don’t even think of it as something that requires much discipline anymore. I eat breakfast, put on my shoes, and go outside.

If the weather is bad and I skip it, I just do it again the next day.

That was probably the most useful thing I got from wearing a CGM.

Before, “walk after meals” was just another piece of health advice.

After seeing the difference myself, it became much more concrete. I could connect a very small action — walking around for 10 or 15 minutes — with something measurable happening in my own body.

It also made me rethink how I’m approaching prediabetes in general.

Instead of trying to completely overhaul my diet or rely on willpower, I’ve become more interested in small experiments:

• What happens if I walk after a meal?
• What happens if I eat less at lunch?
• Which meals give me the biggest spikes?
• Which changes actually make a noticeable difference for me?

Not every CGM fluctuation is meaningful, of course, and I don’t want to obsess over every number. But as a tool for learning about my own habits, I found it surprisingly useful.

I also documented the full two-week CGM experiment in a video here, if anyone is interested in the details:

https://youtu.be/V3ZyJdcdAgA?si=4dmaE-2L0ssTjNOJ

For those of you who have used a CGM with prediabetes: did seeing your own glucose data actually change any of your habits?

And has anyone compared the same meal with vs. without a short walk afterward?

For years, my parents kept telling me that I should take a walk after meals.

Doctors told me the same thing: walk more, exercise more.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe them. I knew walking was good for me. But I already exercised regularly — I swim and do strength training — so another 10–15 minutes of walking always felt kind of optional.

And “it’s good for your health” was just too abstract.

If I went for a walk today, I wouldn’t feel noticeably healthier tomorrow. Since I couldn’t really see or feel the difference, it was very easy to skip.

So despite hearing the same advice for years, I never actually developed the habit of walking after meals.

Then recently, I ran a small experiment on myself.

Earlier this year, my HbA1c came back at 5.7%, right at the threshold for prediabetes. On my doctor’s recommendation, I wore a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for two weeks to see how different foods and activities affected my glucose.

I ended up documenting the full two-week experiment in a YouTube video, if anyone is interested in the details:

https://youtu.be/V3ZyJdcdAgA?si=4dmaE-2L0ssTjNOJ

During those two weeks, I tried a bunch of small comparisons.

One of them was very simple.

My breakfast is pretty consistent: oatmeal, milk, and protein powder.

On some days, I walked for 10–15 minutes within half an hour after breakfast. On other days, I didn’t.

In my small dataset, without the walk, the average increase from pre-meal glucose to the post-meal peak was about 34 mg/dL.

With the walk, it was about 22 mg/dL.

The average glucose over the full four hours wasn’t dramatically different, but the post-meal peak was noticeably lower.

Glucose change over four hours after breakfast. Blue = a 10–15 minute walk within 30 minutes after eating; orange = no walk.

Obviously, this was just a small personal experiment.

I had very few observations, I didn’t strictly control everything, and CGMs themselves have measurement error. This doesn’t prove that everyone will get the same result from walking for 10 minutes, and I’m not presenting it as a medical conclusion.

But for me, it was enough.

It was the first time I had actually seen that something as small as walking around the neighborhood for 10–15 minutes could produce an observable change in my body.

And what happened afterward was more interesting to me than the glucose numbers themselves.

I started walking after breakfast almost automatically.

I didn’t make a plan. I didn’t decide that I had to walk seven days a week. I didn’t set reminders or track a streak.

After breakfast, I just naturally put on my shoes and go outside.

Sometimes the weather is bad and I don’t feel like walking. If I skip it, I don’t feel like I’ve “failed” my plan. I just go again the next day.

This feels very different from the way I used to think about building habits.

I used to think the important things were discipline, consistency, and not making excuses.

But this time, I barely felt like I was using discipline at all. The habit just stuck.

I think the difference is that before, “walking after meals is good for you” was just a piece of correct information.

I understood it intellectually, but it had very little connection to whether I actually wanted to put on my shoes that morning.

This time, the breakfast was mine. The walk was mine. And the numbers were mine.

Instead of hearing that walking might make me healthier “in the long run,” I could see a difference that same day.

The benefit stopped being something other people told me about. It became something I had experienced myself.

That made me wonder whether we sometimes blame failed behavior change too quickly on a lack of self-control.

When we fail to stick with something, the usual response is to make a stricter plan, try harder, or tell ourselves that this time we need to be more disciplined.

But if you keep paying the cost of a behavior every day while never really seeing what you’re getting in return, it makes sense that motivation eventually disappears.

So lately, when I want to change something, I’ve been trying to ask a different question:

Instead of “How can I force myself to stick with this?”, can I run a small experiment that lets me see the benefit sooner?

For example:

Eat a smaller lunch for a few days and see whether I’m less sleepy in the afternoon.

Put my phone away earlier and see whether I feel better the next morning.

Write down the single most important thing I need to do before starting work and see whether I’m more likely to finish it.

Not everything needs to be measured precisely. I happened to be wearing a CGM, so in this case I had numbers and a graph.

But sometimes a clear subjective difference is probably enough.

Of course, some things really do take months or years to pay off. Not every good habit gives immediate feedback.

But even when the ultimate benefit is far away, maybe it helps to find some smaller signal that shows up sooner.

Otherwise, the cost you pay today is real, while the benefit exists mostly in your imagination.

My parents told me to walk after meals for years. Doctors told me too.

What finally changed my behavior wasn’t hearing the advice one more time.

It was one tiny experiment where I could see the result for myself.

Has anyone else had something like this happen — where seeing your own data, or running a small experiment on yourself, changed your behavior more than simply knowing what you were “supposed” to do?

 

## TL;DR

I was tricked by a fake Cloudflare verification page and installed malware. My bank account, credit card, and email were compromised. I have already contacted my bank, replaced cards, changed my email password (from a clean phone), and started a full Windows reinstall. I have not restored any files from my external backup yet due to possible exposure risk.

---

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice to make sure I haven’t missed anything after what appears to be a malware infection.

---

## What happened

Yesterday, I visited a doctor’s website and was presented with what looked like a legitimate Cloudflare verification page. I later realized it was fake. Unfortunately, I followed the instructions and ended up downloading and running malware.

---

## What happened afterward

By the next day:

- My bank account was compromised.
- My credit card account was compromised.
- My email account also appears to have been accessed.

---

## What I’ve already done

So far I have:

- Contacted my bank and credit card company.
- Locked/replaced my compromised cards.
- Changed my email password using my phone (which I believe is clean).
- Started reinstalling Windows from scratch.
- Plan to gradually change passwords for the hundreds of online accounts I have after the reinstall.

I have not yet restored any files from my external backup drive because I’m concerned it may also have been exposed while the infected computer was in use. The backup mainly contains personal documents stored in Dropbox.

---

## My questions

1. Is there anything important that I’m missing?
2. Should I assume all passwords that were saved in my browser are compromised?
3. Is it safe to restore personal documents from the backup drive after reinstalling Windows, or should I take additional precautions first?
4. Since the backup mainly contains documents synchronized from Dropbox, is there any risk that the backup drive itself could be infected? If so, what’s the safest way to verify or clean it before copying the files back?
5. Are there any other high-priority accounts I should secure besides banking and email (for example, password managers, cloud storage, social media, or mobile carrier accounts)?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve been dealing with insomnia for over 10 years, especially difficulty staying asleep and waking up too early. I’ve tried several medications, but none of them has worked particularly well long term.

• Trazodone: basically did nothing for me.
• Mirtazapine: helped a little, but I still woke up too early.
• Olanzapine: probably gave me the best sleep, but I felt very sleepy the next day, and given I have prediabetes, I’m also concerned about its effects on blood sugar and metabolism.
• Escitalopram: I tried it mainly for anxiety, but it didn’t really solve the sleep problem.
• Doxepin: I’m currently testing it, but so far I’m not sure it’s helping.
• Unisom (OTC): no noticeable effect.

At this point, I’m getting tired of repeatedly trying medications and dealing with side effects. I’m thinking about trying CBT-I instead, either with a therapist or through a structured online program.

Has CBT-I genuinely helped anyone here, especially after several medications didn’t work? How difficult was it at the beginning, and how long did it take before you noticed meaningful improvement?

I’d also be interested in hearing whether it helped more with falling asleep, staying asleep, or early-morning awakenings.

Hi everyone,

My doctor wants to start me on 3mg Doxepin for sleep. However, my insurance completely denied the Prior Authorization for the 3mg tablet and will only cover the 10mg Doxepin capsules.

I'm trying to figure out my options:

1. Splitting/Dosing Capsules: Since 10mg comes in powder capsules, is it safe or effective to open the capsule and split/dilute the powder (e.g., using water or weighing it) to approximate a 3mg or 5mg dose? Or does opening the capsule destroy how the medication is absorbed?
2. Alternative Approaches: Has anyone had success getting insurance to cover low-dose doxepin after an initial PA denial, or is there a standard workaround pharmacists usually recommend for this?

I plan to talk to my pharmacist, but I’d appreciate any insight or experiences with this issue.

Thanks in advance!