When fishing ditches, should you cast from deeper water to shallow or inverse or does it matter?

I don't know how you north folks manage it.  This cold weather needs to GET, go-on get!  I'm bout to lose my mind.

At the risk of asking a dumb question. Can cold temperatures damage fishing gear like reels rod and line?

BLat's recent Youtube video got me thinking about the fiscal ($$$$) aspects of tournament fishing.  Has anyone built or know of a good spreadsheet for tracking cost or building a budget?  As you can imagine I started down a rabbit hole and started a spreadsheet. Screen capture attached

Anyone else feel like you hit a threshold of information overload when preparing for a tournament?