11
votes
What are some of your "life hacks" you use regularly?
These could be active skills or techniques you've found helpful, things you've built or bought that have changed an area of your life, or just something that brings you more joy than you had before.
A few subject areas that could spark ideas (but please share things outside of these if you have them!):
- Work / Professional Life / Networking
- Cooking / Baking / Food Prep
- Cleaning
- DIY
- Crafts / Hobbies
- Home Automation / Security
- Beauty / Grooming / Personal Hygiene
- Travel
- Planning / Scheduling / Memory Aids
- Fitness
- Relaxation
- Mental Health
Perhaps the most unconventional example I have is automating Microsoft Teams activity and notifications for work. My current job activity has more slow periods than busy ones, and for some reason the MS Teams app on my phone does not notify me when a new chat message comes in. So I over-engineered a solution, and am self-hosting a container that spins up Firefox, opens Teams web, and runs two separate user scripts. One keeps me appearing as active (simulates mouse movement). The other that I built out myself will monitor areas of the web page that change when a message comes in, and send my phone a notification via Gotify, another service I'm running. This has been a game changer since I work from home. I no longer feel glued to my computer (with the exception of meetings and busy/crunch times). Having some extra time to do laundry or other tasks is very beneficial in a lot of ways, including for my mental health, as I'm not stressing over always watching for messages.
Another thing that I use multiple times a week is a digital recipe book (we use Mealie). Having a central place to decide what to cook for the week and generate a grocery list is a huge help for getting our family through a task we admittedly do not like very much. Associated with this is grocery pickup, which we utilize for free with Walmart. Not having to traverse the store aisles, fight for parking, or face constant temptation from end cap items has changed our life for the better. Both of these have made us healthier through easily enabling more cooking at home.
The headphones I use for working have a feature where they turn themselves off automatically if you take them off for too long. Since the passive sound isolation is pretty good, sometimes I won't notice until I join a zoom meeting and look like an idiot from 2018 who has never used Zoom because I can't hear anything.
So I vibe coded a service for my linux computer that looks for new zoom windows and then pops up a notification if my headphones are not connected. There are still reasons I look like an idiot, but I've pruned the tree by one.
Programmatic reminders are indeed quite valuable.
I have a shortcut set up on my phone that asks me if I want to disable the "send unknown callers to voicemail" setting when I open a rideshare app. Just in case they call me when I'm waiting for them to arrive.
Even non-programmatically: I use the standard reminders app for recurring tasks I need to do daily, every few days, etc. Being able to snooze them for an hour is nice as well.
And even doing "manual programming" of your brain: whenever I remove oven mitts, I immediately check if I need to turn off the oven and do so.
I forget where I learned it, and whether or not it’s common knowledge, but I get a surprising amount of use out of a simple procedure for solving ratios/proportions/unit conversions. It’s useful for modifying ingredient amounts in recipes on the fly, and basically anything else that involves scaling.
Say you have a ratio like this:
You can quickly solve for X by multiplying the 2 numbers it’s adjacent to: 4 * 6, then dividing the product by the number opposite X: (4 * 6) / 8 = 3.
X can be in any of the 4 positions and the method will still work—the above equation would work out the same as any of these reflections of it (this is just a few examples out of many more):
This is called Cross-multiplication. It came up in Advent of Code at one time as well.
I love this one and use it often.
I learned it in a really low math class in college (think elementary school level) and was surprised that in higher level classes they teach a more difficult way to do this and this isn’t common. Most people don’t know how to do it this way.
I can’t even remember the more difficult option because I refused to switch.
My biggest life hack is a five year plan.
My second biggest life hack is to always say yes even if I am feeling lazy, or to say no even if I will feel bad.
I write down what I want to have achieved in five years. Things like travel to Europe, go to burning man, ride a motorcycle, buy a house, start a business, learn to sail. The point isn't to force myself to do these things. The point is to think about what I want to do, and think about what small things I can do in the next year that will start me on that journey. Things like buy a travel book (this was decades ago), research burning man, schedule lessons, buy books on house inspections, create a website, read about sailing.
A friend said a mutual acquaintance once commented that the one thing he was impressed by me, was that I was always off doing cool shit (at the time I was learning to fire dance.) It's not because I am cool. It is because I have a five year plan, that becomes a list of small things to do that year.
As for the second life hack, I am not sure how to say this. I will always try to tell friends and family yes to anything that gets me outside of the house, even if I am tired and would rather sit inside on a digital device. If a friend wants to go party but I just want to chill and watch a movie? Yes, lets party. If my son wants to cook Butter Chicken tonight? Yes. Lets go buy the ingredients from the local Fijian store. On the other hand, if the only thing that is stopping me from saying no is a feeling of guilt, the answer is always No. No, I will not talk to you about Jesus/ my electricity bill. No I will not do your job, or no I can't give you both what you want (quality) and also by when you want it (time), pick one.
Little things:
Clothes: One style of socks only. Slip on shoes.
Travel: My dopp kit is always ready to go and continually evolves. Over the years I added eye mask, ear plugs, bottle openers.
Car: Contains a portable jump starter and portable tire inflator, plus a rag to check the oil, and water bottles.
Tech: Did you turn it off and turn it on again? Lets try that one more time while I watch you do it...
Quality of life: Audio books while driving, doing chores, mountain biking in the hills.
Edit: Calendar reminders with automatic emails! I get emailed weeks before I need to start thinking about someones birthday! Timers for shorter term things like remembering the pot is on the boil or clothes are done in the washer.
In another lifetime I read an essay? agony aunt? by Dan Savage about saying yes to things proposed by a partner. The acronym he used was GGG, and while I don’t remember the other Gs, the last one is game, as in “I’m game,” à la your just saying yes. His argument was basically that being game makes you a generous, giving, good partner (two of the other Gs perhaps?) I try to incorporate that into all my relationships, and it’s made me a better friend (and lover).
My #1 life hack is the good old coin toss.
Want to make a decision you don't care about?
Toss a coin!
Want to settle an argument that just needs some reason to end?
Toss a coin!
Want to lightly deceive your companions to have your way?
Carry a conspicuously abnormal coin and toss it! "Yup, that's heads."
Want to make a significant decision but can't quite tell which way to go?
Toss a coin, and you'll know!
Want to look like Doc Holliday, but lack the dexterity?
Toss a coin to save face!
What can't it do?
Something I read about the coin toss is that when you make the coin toss, you'll either be happy or disappointed with the outcome, and that helps you know which thing you really wanted.
Yea I use it when the decision seem to be almost tied - when both choices seem to have some advantages and some disadvantages and I don't strongly prefer either - coin toss it is. Then I condition myself to do it even sooner in the decision process next time, so I save even more mental energy.
I do this a lot with the decision coin from Random.org’s app. I have it toss 5 coins for me, best of five wins.
The kindle app on my phone allows me to read in bed in the dark while partner sleeps.
My first job in high-school was a kitchen at a summer camp. I learned knife technique to chop quickly and safely, and I also learned hacks to chop vegetables efficiently. For example I cut lettuce for salad with a few geometric cuts. It doesn't turn out pretty but it's quick to do.
I could certainly benefit from learning knife techniques. It's one of those things I find hard to invest time into to because I don't enjoy cooking. But it would probably make me hate cooking less if I learned a bit.
I started showering before bed when I worked in the medical field and had to, but I kept doing it even though I work from home on a computer all day because of the routine.
Showering and brushing teeth isn’t something I have to think about, its part of my bed time routine. I know that it takes 20 mins to do, and so then I know I have to start the routine before I actually want to be in bed and this also enforces a bed time.
On the outside I look really put together but really my entire life is just a series of routines like this.
A few that I use that I’ve never seen mentioned before in a life hack thread and use weekly:
If you want soft cookies or your cookies have gotten hard over time throw a piece of bread in the container. The cookies steal the moisture from the bread and have the perfect level of softness.
If you are opening a canned food item that retains its shape (refined beans for example) don’t waste time scooping it out with a spoon.
If you flip it upside down and use the can opener on the bottom as well the food item will slide out completely on its own after you puncture it.
This sometimes works too even if the top is a pull tab as long as the bottom of the metal isn’t too thick for the can opener to penetrate.