Tired: “My favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard.”

Wired: “My favorite Christmas movie is Eyes Wide Shut.”

You could be forgiven for finding the now-annual seasonal discourse vis à vis Die Hard’s status as a holiday movie exhausting. What began as a funny bit of trivia has become an ice cold hot take from the “funniest” guy in the office.—there’s even officially licensed, branded merchandise celebrating the film’s Christmas bona fides! Any discussion on the topic is purely academic at this point, and I think we’re all ready to move on.

The real question is, move on to what? Which only-technically-a-holiday-movie movie will emerge as the choice of “actually…” cineasts the internet over? Forgive me for suggesting that Die Hard could ever get old, but there will surely come a day, when you’ll want watch a different so-called Christmas movie. Tastes and seasonal holiday celebrations may vary, but here are 28 reasonable alternatives.

The Thin Man (1934)

Cloud storage has changed the way we take care of our data. In the past, you needed to backup and transfer files between devices directly, or else you wouldn’t have them in multiple locations. If you took photos on your iPhone or Android, for example, you’d often want to plug it into your computer to make sure those photos were both backed up and easily accessible for sharing with friends, family, and the internet at large.

The problem is, we’ve changed the way we deal with data these days. If you plug your smartphone into your computer expecting to transfer all the photos and videos you see in your photos app of choice, you might be surprised to find that only a fraction of the images actually make their way to your PC. It’s confusing, considering that media is accessible on the phone: Why can it just be a seamless transfer?

Google Photos makes it confusing to know which images are stored on-device

That’s exactly what happened with Reddit user Spax123, who took to the Google Pixel subreddit with the issue. This user was trying to transfer their late wife’s media library from Google Photos on her Pixel to their PC, but only the photos and videos from roughly the last six months would end up on their computer. There was about four and a half years worth of images that were seemingly trapped on her phone, and wouldn’t even appear when he took at a look at her Google Drive account.

This story has a happy ending, though. Redditor degggendorf correctly guessed the rest of the photos and videos in the library were saved to the cloud: Only a recent snapshot of photos were actually saved on the Pixel itself, while the rest were being shown as previews from the cloud. Google doesn’t make it clear that’s what happening here, which easily leads to confusion: If you see all your photos in one place, you naturally assume they’re, well, all in the same place.

How to download Google Photos images from the cloud

The solution? Simply log into Google Photos’ web app. Here, you can access your entire Google Photos library and choose to download any and all of the images here to another location, such as your computer.

If you were only interested in a handful of specific images to transfer, it’s easy to download them on-device. You can choose the image in question, tap the three dots More button, then choose Download. This will pull the image from the cloud and onto your phone, which will then allow it to transfer when you connect your phone to your computer.

Source: LifeHacker – How to Download All Your Media From Google Photos

It’s been nearly a month since I ran the NYC marathon. I knew that after such an emotional experience, the longer I took to lace up my shoes again, the harder it was going to be. I’ve missed writing my weekly posts about all things marathon training, and now that I’m finally back pounding the pavement, I thought I’d sling a running hack your way.

For me, the toughest part about returning to running after taking time off is establishing a new routine. When you’re not following a strict (well, semi-strict) training plan, what do you do? Especially for people who don’t consider themselves to be runners in the first place—what do you do? There are a lot of reasons someone might struggle to get into running, but I find a top culprit to be a lack of planning. You have to strike a balance between ambition and flexibility, and then actually hold yourself accountable to your plan. Let’s take a look at why the secret to becoming a runner is the strength of your routine, and how you can establish a running routine yourself.

How to establish a running routine

Time and time again, my friends will tell me they’ve started to get into running, only to lose interest (or quit) within a few weeks. The figures vary, but one study suggests that it usually takes around two months of doing something to make it a habit—and a lot of us don’t make it that long. Then again, as Lifehacker senior health editor Beth Skwarecki has explained before, a lot of our talk about “habits” is not actually about habit formation, but behavior change. She provides this example: “You might think of ‘go for a run every morning’ as a simple habit. But there are a lot of things that go into becoming the sort of person who actually finds it simple to go for a run every morning.”

Your routine—and how well you stick to it—is what makes the difference between whether or not you incorporate running into your life in the long term. Here are some tips for becoming the sort of person who finds it simple to go on a run every morning.

Set realistic goals

You are more likely to stick with a running habit if you start with small goals. That may mean holding yourself back a bit, both in terms of pace and distance. (This topic means a lot to me; one of my first posts at Lifehacker was all about how you need to run slower to run faster.)

Don’t expect to complete your first marathon next week if you’re just starting. Give yourself progressive mini-goals to reach like running a mile without walking, being able to jog for 30 minutes continuously, or taking 5-10 minutes off your 5K time. This will help track progress and keep you motivated.

Create calendar events for yourself

Actually schedule your runs as you would other important commitments. It’s easy to make excuses if your running is random or sporadic. Ensure it’s in your calendar like clockwork; mornings are great for avoiding fatigue and life getting in the way later.

Build up gradually, and slow down

I believe the reason so many people claim to hate running is because what they’re actually doing is sprinting. This dooms them to tire out sooner than they’d like—convincing them that they can’t run long distances, and confirming their assumption that “running isn’t for them.”

Respect that your cardiovascular fitness and musculoskeletal systems need time to adapt. Start with short runs mixed with walking once or twice a week and increase duration, distance, and frequency by no more than 10% each week to prevent overuse injuries.

Prep your gear

Prepping gear ahead of time such as your running watch, shoes, weather-appropriate apparel, water bottle, and headphones goes a long way versus scrambling or postponing if you can’t find an item. Being ready to go makes sticking to your routine much more seamless.

Skip the numbers (for now)

Runners are obsessed wearables or apps to monitor metrics like distance, pace, heart rate, and splits. I get it—reviewing patterns provides valuable feedback, exposes strengths and weaknesses, and keeps you striving towards new marks like an upcoming 5K PR.

But if your main goal right now is simply to establish a routine, I suggest you ditch the metrics. Your priority right now is consistency. Try intuitive running and taking it slow, and maybe you’ll even start to like running. Personally, I think there’s nothing more promising for your routine than actually enjoying the routine.

Source: LifeHacker – The Secret to Becoming a Runner Is a Good Routine

Many of the most popular productivity methods only really work if you know how much time each task is going to take you: Timeboxing, the Eisenhower matrix, Kanban, the Ivy Lee method, and others expect you to be able to plan for the precise amount of time a given project is going to suck from your day. If you estimate wrong, the whole plan kind of falls apart and you’re left feeling discouraged and, well, unproductive. That’s where time trackers come in to help. Here are some of the best ones you can use when doing daily tasks to figure out how many of your precious waking hours are devoted to all the stuff you have to do. 

If you want to be detailed: Clockify

I’ve recommended Clockify for tracking your New Year’s goals already, but it’s a longtime leader in the field. Lifehacker recommended it for tracking your time as far back as 2009, and it’s only improved since then. On the landing page, you’re greeted with a button that says, “START TRACKING TIME — IT’S FREE!” While Clockify does have a subscription model, if you want to be detailed in your time-tracking, you can just use the free version. It’s famous for being a timesheet app, but it allows you to track the minutes of all your work, producing a summary report for each day. (The reports can also tell you how much money was earned per project, how much money was spent per project, and all kinds of other relevant information.) You can even track time offline and it will appear in your account once you reconnect. 

If you want simplicity: TogglTrack

TogglTrack lets you use all of its premium features for free for a month (and a basic version is always free), and it’s simple to use. Other trackers have a learning curve or a steep price, which you don’t have time for when you’re trying to get things done, so this one is a pleasant surprise. I was able to quickly create a project (“Working on articles”) and then add a task (“Time-tracker article”) and put in an estimate of how long I thought it would take me. I hit a button next to the task and a timer started. Eventually, if I kept at it, my dashboard will fill up with my total hours of work, showing me just how much time I really spent. The free version is geared toward freelancers and works for up to five team members, who can use time tracking, a timeline, auto-tracking, idle detection, a pomodoro timer, and over 100 integrations with other software. For $9 per month, teams get all that plus billable rates, time rounding, time estimates, broken-out tasks, and project templates. An $18/month premium subscription will get you schedule reports, time audits, insights, and project and admin dashboards. 

To go at your own pace: TrackingTime

TrackingTime is nice because it has a few different functionalities. It can track you automatically or give you the option to block out time within the software, letting you see (and edit, of course) what needs to be done and how long you have to do it. It integrates with over 50 apps and other softwares so you can track while you work instead of opening TrackingTime to mark it down, and there’s a mobile app so you can take it on the go. Tracking time is free, but if you want to incorporate things like AutoTrack and desktops apps, it’ll be $8 per month. 

If you really don’t want to put effort into this: Timely

Timely is automated, so if you truly do not want to waste time tracking it, here you go. The software makes what it calls “memories” of everything you do on your computer, like software you use or websites you visit‚ and whenever you want, you can just drag and drop the memories into your pre-defined tasks. You don’t have to put every site you visit into the tasks; it’s all private and what you highlight is up to you—you can always toggle it off when you want to visit a certain site. It’s $11 per month to automate your time tracking, categorize time with an AI feature, and make reports, but $20 if you want to sync other project management tools. Just bear in mind this might not be the best option for you if a lot of your work takes place off the computer. 

If you need help staying on task: RescueTime

RescueTime is a time tracker that not only tracks your work, but kind of forces you to stay on it. This is helpful if you keep getting distracted and can make it easy to see how much time a task takes, instead of how much time a task plus all your forays away from the task take. You download the monitoring app to your computer and it collects data on your usage, but it chimes in if you appear distracted or like you’re doing too many things at once. You can even tell the software how much “Focus Work” (or deep work) you want to get done in a day and, once you toggle on a Focus Session, it will block websites you’ve pre-identified as distracting. There is a free version, but you’ll pay $12 per month if you want to see past data, integrate a calendar, or use Focus Sessions. 

Source: LifeHacker – Five of the Best Programs for Tracking Your Time