上周五，我们对员工每周的升级进行了总结，编辑们在我们的环境中引入了更多的植物生命，破解了适合Instagram的万圣节服装代码，戒掉了咖啡，清除了浏览器中的混乱。

本周，我们要适应寒冷的天气，想办法睡得更好，远离我们的智能**，重新安排我们的厨房策略。

你这周做了什么升级？请在评论中告诉我们。

Add a new option to your podcast rotation

I just blew through the first nine episodes of Mission to Zyxx, an improvised sci-fi comedy. It combines the flavors of Star Wars and Star Trek without stooping to parody. The sound design is meticulous, and little outtakes at the end reveal details about their recording process.

nick douglas, staff writer

Keep your hands from freezing while typing

My home gets unusually cold in the fall and winter (colder than you’d think for Southern California), and it makes it hard to type because my fingers are frozen. So, I bought some fingerless compression gloves. They keep my hands warm and are very comfortable.

patrick allan, staff writer

Switch to grayscale and put down your phone

I turned my phone screen to grayscale to combat phone addiction! It’s been, like, five days. My phone is really boring now so I guess it’s working. I’ll open Instagram and think, “Ugh, what’s the point?” Today, after clicking on a link to the Nordstrom Rack sale, I started scrolling through the pages of gray, and thought, “Why am I doing this?!” I spent zero dollars. So, win? Even with grayscale, it’s very possible to spend too much time on your phone (you don’t need color to read mindless tweets and Facebook updates), but I do think it’s helping me be more mindful of how much we subc***ciously get sucked in. I think I’ll stick with gray for a little while longer.

michelle woo, parenting editor

Sleep easier with white noise

My mom sent me a white noise maker to help me rest during this hectic holiday season and it is EXTREMELY helpful. It just makes noise by moving air around, so it’s not like an audio recording, which can have a detectable pattern and wake me up—if that makes any sense.

claire lower, food & beverage editor

Create a digital recipe box

For years, my system for keeping track of recipes has been a disaster; a mess of cookbooks with tattered post-its, various emails to myself, multiple Google docs with a bunch of links dumped into them, probably some recipes I saved in the New York Times digital recipe box thingy... you get the idea. I don’t know why I’d put it off for so long, but this week I finally shelled out the $4.99 for Paprika, and it’s already a game changer. In particular, it’s nice to have recipes auto-formatted and saved in one place, so I’m not c***tantly Googling “Martha Stewart French Lentil Salad” on bad wifi while I’m at the grocery store, frantic that I’m forgetting some key ingredient. Once I have it set up more, I’m also excited to use custom categories (“work lunch,” “recipes to try,” “dressings,” etc.) to make things as easy and searchable as possible.

virginia k. **ith, managing editor

Pack a portable clean-up kit

I like to try to dress reasonably well for the office, mostly to trick people into thinking I care about my appearance. Unfortunately, accidents happen all the time in offices, accidents involving getting detritus on your pants while you crawl under tables to unplug power cables, or getting food stuck in your beard. So I built myself a mini clean-up kit. Inside my tiny dopp kit is a brush and pick for my beard, a Tide To-Go pen, an extra **all lint roller, a pack of breath mints, and a USB drive. It’s compact, fits in my backpack, and helps me uphold the illusion I’m a productive member of society.

patrick austin, staff writer

Purge your content clutter

We’re pretty far off from spring cleaning time, but as the end of the year approaches, I decided to do a fall content purge. I went through my phone and deleted podcast episodes (and even a few entire podcasts), finally threw out those July New Yorker issues I’d dog-eared, and even clicked X on my many open tabs. It wasn’t easy, but the relief I’m feeling now was totally worth it.

caitlin schneider, social editor