Wrestle the pig first, every day. Whatever is your worst, most unpleasant, annoying task for the entire day, do it before you do anything else. It minimizes your stress and worrying and puts it in the rearview mirror.
For a second I thought you were talking about masturbation.
Well yeah crank your hog first of course
SPEAK UP BROTHER, I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY CRANKED HOG
Ok, I wrestled a cop and pinned him. What’s step 2? Please respond before his backup arrives.
I think you're supposed to tickle his balls now.
Alternatively, if you’re neurodivergent you may have a better time doing the easiest tasks first to build momentum and motivation.
Yeah, everyone’s neurochemistry is different and should be experimented with.
I didn’t know this for so long, that I needed a few easy wins to set the pace, that I feel like I could have been way more productive throughout my 20s haha
My former mentor said: 80% of the deliverable is the 20% of the scope you really don't want to do
Human memory is bias towards most recent things in a group set. If your set is a "workout" or a "workday", doing the fun stuff last will affect positively all the memory items in the same group set. This works even if you know that your memory is doing this.
We don't live in a "present now". We live in a mental image constructed from memory of recent past.
Trick is not to do unpleasant stuff first, but to do pleasant stuff last.
I feel like saying "I have to do this before anything else" might very well end with me doing nothing
I always heard it as "Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day". Same meaning, and I think I like yours better.
I don't think "waking up early" counts, but it's definitely the most unpleasant and annoying task of my weekdays, followed closely by actually getting to work.
I have some paperwork to do that will likely result in $2000. It's been over a year and i cannot just sit down and do it. I stress over it every day but continue to put it off.
To stop infinite scroll on social media, quickly scroll 2-3 screen lengths down without looking at the posts. Now read the posts scrolling up. Eventually you'll reach where you started and most probably the laziness to go all the way back will prompt you to exit the app.
That's amazing!
Now give me a tip to prevent myself from opening the same app immediately after hahaha
Instead of closing an app, shutdown the phone. Now it's a pain to reopen the app.
With how fast phones start up nowadays, that's hardly a pain
New tip: Install bloatware to make it slower
I changed the icon location, and my muscle memory still was trying to open them from the previous location, basically in a complete auto-pilot mode. That led me to a realization of how fucked up the situation was, and eventually helped me uninstall/reduce screen time of those apps.
For some reason I always have a habit of scroll to the bottom of any list and reading up. Like I wanna confirm how long the list is before working my way up
How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.
Or soda. Or sugary drinks in general.
I hate the talk about soda. It's a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn't killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed.
-stepping off my soapbox-
Fruit juice is notorious for this.
'but its fruit juice! Its 100% natural!'
Most still have added sugars on top of the fact that most of the fruit has been squeezed out only leaving... Sugars.
Even on their own, the natural fruit sugars aren't enough to make drinking fruit juice "healthy" when all the fiber has been squeezed out.
But the one two punch of sugars is just as bad as any other sugary drink.
Same with cans of Arizona or Snapple or anything else. It's all terrible.
People don't realize that ultra processed food is basically everything they eat and drink. There are very few things that aren't, and they're mostly whole food adjacent.
If it's not straight up water and plain vegetables, fruit, and grain equivalents, it's more than likely ultra processed no matter how healthy it claims to be.
So much of non-genetic cancers comes from what we ingest willingly. A large portion of it would stop if everyone ate a well rounded whole foods diet. But shit is expensive, takes time and kwh to make, and people are busy trying to enjoy life.
The problem isn’t carbonation (Bubly, Liquid Death have 0g). The problem is carbonated sugary drinks typically have more sugar than other sugary drinks, not a rule but per amount sold.
The typical soda has 38g of sugar per 12oz (can). Google states the following:
Coca-Cola is 45g.
Mountain Dew is 46g.
Redbull and Monster are 34g.
Arizona Sweet Tea is 31g.
Apple juice is 33g.
Orange juice is 28g.
Cranberry juice is 42g.
Anything over 28g is no go territory for me. Anything under is generally not an issue blood sugar wise for me. Note: I am not diabetic.
I try not to drink calories at all, but if I do, it's considered part of the meal.
I strongly recommend this, as strongly as reading the news everyday. Don't watch or listen to it, READ it. It makes you conscious of your participation, makes it easier to remember, and over time, will sharpen your critical thinking skills
If you've ever thought 'holy fuck some people are dumb', well, if they read the news on the reg, they'd be less and less dumb, everyday.
I feel like there's a subtlety here. Ocassional Glass of wine with dinner versus binge drinking.
Of course the problem is that the first drink makes then next one more attractive and degrades impulse control... so YMMV.
One is too many and a thousand is never enough.
Edit: I do get the irony of someone with my username posting this. I understand what's wrong with binge drinking and me in general, I'm just not ready to fix it.
You and I are in the same place.
Well, I’m not in Texas, but I’m with you otherwise.
I’ll fix it sometime. Hopefully soon.
We're gonna be alright, buddy.
Thank ya. We definitely are. My problem is, drinkin’ makes everything SO MUCH FUN. If it just wasn’t so damn fun, it wouldn’t be an issue
I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.
But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.
Yep. For me it made the week so much easier..wake up fresher, work out easier, handle job tasks smoother.
Friday night have fun. Wednesday? Nah. Tea please.
Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.
One time I was in Mexico with my wife while our daughter was still a baby and the lady at the front desk of the hotel where we were staying offered us a crib we could borrow. It was a kind gesture, but I was a little concerned because the crib seemed wobbly. I realized there were some screws loose but though I had a multitool on me, the holes were stripped.
So later, I was talking with a local and he's like "I can fix that." He comes over and pulls a pack of toothpicks out of his pocket. He sticks one into each hole and breaks it off so that it's not sticking out anymore. Then he drives the screw back in. I shook the crib after that and it was rock solid!
Now I always keep some toothpicks handy. Fast-forward to just this year. My daughter is now an adult living in a condo, and was complaining the screw popped out of a kitchen cabinet door when her roommate yanked on it too hard. "I can fix that."
Wood glue and/or toothpicks are probably stronger than the particle board most furniture is made of nowadays, it's repairing and strengthening.
Another adjacent life hack is when assembling flat pack furniture, use a quality wood glue on all the joints and connectors, but especially those little wood dowels. It won't make it indestructible, but it'll hold up far better over time.
It works a bit better if you put a little bit of wood glue on the tip of each toothpick before driving it into the hole. Definitely a great trick!
Interesting. I will definitely pick some up! Thanks.
Also works with golf tees or dowels.
I’m so glad you posted this - my integrated fridge door has dropped slightly after being taken off and put back on when installed. Can’t really screw back into mdf/chipboard/whatever and I’ve been stressing about getting it fixed for months because whilst it’ll get worse over time, it technically works and no doubt the fitter would say I need to take the whole thing out and replace the side panel.
You can do something similar with damaged metal threads, instead of toothpicks using copper wire strands. Project Farm has a video on the technique comparing it to other fixes: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jknMrFOGMOQ
Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.
Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn't formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
Hey that's a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.
Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?
@dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I'd say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.
It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes” means. Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.
If you want to, add meat. If you don’t, do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)
If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, jollof, biryani, or equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)
There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.
This is the way.
You start frying an onion and then figure out what you're making for dinner.
There's a book that you should pickup..
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat
It really covers everything you'll need to be able to cook anything. They even made a 4 part series about it on Netflix.
I really like this. Do you have any resources I can check out that cover this?
A good example is The Curry Guy. Dan somebody?
Make a huge batch of base curry sauce, and then with a few more ingredients you can make dozens of Indian and Bangladeshi dishes
He's got loads of recipes on his site, but his book is really useful in a kitchen
I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.
The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.
I watch them both a ton, good stuff. Weissman can be a little snooty tho.
K Keni Lopez-Alt is amazing 😍
I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it's super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.
Not really a "hack" but I don't know why most people get into phone contracts.
Since college, I have always just bought unlocked phones with cash and then used the carrier's prepaid plans and set it to auto pay.
I pay so much less than most people I know, I get all the same service, and my phone isn't tied to a contract or carrier, so I can cancel my plan whenever I want and switch to another carrier by just buying their SIM card for ~$20.
My current phone is an unlocked Pixel 6a that I got on sale new for $300. I have unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month. And if I get sick of my current carrier or they bump my cost, I can just switch to anybody else for just the cost of a $20 SIM card.
I have so many friends and family members that complain about their phone bills being super high and their service sucking, but they can't cancel their contracts without paying off their huge balances plus the interest and usually cancelation fees. Plus, because their phone is tied to the contract/carrier, they can't even keep transfer the phone to the new carrier and have to get sucked into a "phone trade-in" deal and the cycle continues.
And for the folks saying that most people can't afford to save up and buy a phone outright, there are a lot of places that offer payment plans for the phone, or you can buy it on credit and pay it off that way, which would likely be less interest over time. Or you could buy unlocked used/refurbished phones for 25-50% off their normal price.
Maybe it makes sense if you get a stipend from your company, or you bundle it with a bunch of other packages like cable TV or internet, but for just a cell phone, I just don't get locking yourself into a crazy contract.
This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.
Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.
I believe a major factor in this was a ruling by the Hoge Raad that a "free" phone with a contract is unlawful and is actually a loan. Carriers now have to list the price for the phone and for the service separately, so it's a lot more clear what the costs of the phone are.
Also, a "free" phone is now registered as a loan with monthly recurring costs, which impacts for example the maximum mortgage you can get on a home.
Also in the Netherlands and I have recently extended this concept to my home internet. Since 25 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload is enough for my use, I no longer have an internet subscription and I make use of $25 LycaMobile unlimited data sim cards for home internet using a sim router. The IMEI of the router can be easily modified, which is also a plus.
Part of the problem is that we’re advertised at constantly, so when the latest, greatest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel comes along we feel like we need it. Because if we get the £1200 phone the resell value in two years will still be high, right? It actually makes sense.
But the only way to afford that is to borrow the money to pay for it.
I picked up an iPhone 13 mini last year, on a two year contract, for £29 a month. And that’s ok by me. By the end of my contract I’ll go SIM-only and my bill will drop to around £10 a month, which I’ll rock until Apple finally release another mini phone.
So this 13 mini will be the last phone I ever use…
Keep a set of swimwear in your car. If you go to a place and forgot your swimsuit? Got the backup. Go to a hotel and find out they had a pool you didn't know about? Backup in the car. Accidentally shit yourself? Got at least something on you. Do I shit myself enough to worry about it? Not since I was a baby but now I know I got swim trunks in my car just in case.
This works for so many occasions too. At a watermelon eating contest? Backup in the car. Going to a funeral? Backup in the car. Need to bury a body? Backup clothing, right there.
Carry two swimsuits: one for me and one for the recently departed.
"it's... it's what he would have wanted."
Oh right. Also bring your scriptures or a turntable with the two swimsuits so you can experiment with new material during the sendoff.
Does this work for horse funerals as well?
Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.
If you need to remember something for the next time you go out, put your shoes somewhere odd. When you go to leave, you'll remember you moved them, which will remind you why you moved them.
Or you won't be able to find your shoes, panic because you're running late, and forget about the thing you needed because of said panic.
That’s why you always leave a note.
If the note is with your shoes, does that make it a footnote?
If you can't find something and you've looked everywhere, get a flashlight and look again while pointing the flashlight. It has worked for me every time.
Further, if you drop something small, like a screw, set the flashlight on the floor. This will make all the small things cast long shadows and stand out way more.
I laughed at this because I have around ten flashlights and have absolutely used a smaller flashlight to find my Emisar D4V2 or my beloved DT8
why 10 though? Why not just, say, your smartphone?
I dunno, I just got some and just… got more hahaha. Even my shittiest flashlights are way brighter than any smartphone’s LEDs.
I mainly keep them everywhere so I can quickly take important cat pictures. Shining the brighter ones at the ceiling makes for perfect lighting for indoor cat pics. I don’t like using flash on animals, and my I keep my room pretty dim. But gosh dangit cats are so cute.
I heard that, at least in countries where we read left to right, we also look for things left to right. And if you reverse this and look from right to left that you're more likely to notice something you otherwise missed. So I do that. But I have no data to confirm if it works...
I've heard from someone in the military that they teach you to scan from right to left and bottom to top if you have to stand watch/guard.
It probably stops your brain from going on autopilot.
You know the pop culture reference we use for someone who has misplaced their cellphone, "have you tried calling it?"
This will sound absolutely silly, but one day a friend was looking for some trinket which wasn't a phone, and playfully I asked, "Have you tried calling it?"
They doubled down and started actually calling it, "Trinket.... trinket, where are you?"
And wouldn't you know it, within minutes they found it, and so far this has worked about 99.9% of the time.
So like using a flashlight focuses your eyes, having someone call it out loud kind of quiets the mind, too. It's wild.
My mom prays to St. Anthony. #justcatholicthings
Tony Tony look around. Help me find what can't be found. Something like that?
Close! Don't forget to thank the saint when you find the item. ;)
I use my hands to kind of do the same thing. It's probably the behaviour they modeled Monk's "hand thing" after. It still helps even if I'm searching using my memory and spatial awareness to recall and search through something I am not currently looking at. Somehow, narrowing the scope physically with my hands helps. It's probably a muscle memory or proprioception thing.
For example, if I want to find something to eat in the fridge. I generally won't be able to think of anything by just opening the fridge and looking through it. Unless there is something super obvious like a leftover pizza box or something else impossible to miss like that. Just trying to search by looking at each shelf only increases the odds of finding something by like 5%. But when I use my hand and slowly move it down the shelves, I can somehow think more clearly about what is on each shelf than I could without using my hand. And, as I mentioned, it also works even if I am no longer looking in the fridge. I can do it with the door closed and still more clearly recall what was on each shelf.
It also helps when scanning through my whole house looking for something, with and without currently having eyes on it. Like scanning through the whole house room by room while still sitting at my computer, I do a much better job if I am pointing my hand at the place I am thinking about as I scan.
I should probably mention I am Autistic, my spatial awareness and proprioception are two areas I have seemed to benefit. But it's very easy to get confused or distracted if I have too much information at once. So that is mostly what is going on. I can't just imagine that I am pointing at something in my imagination to gain the benefit, I have to be literally, physically pointing. Although I can translocate, like not be at my house or fridge and still scan my house or fridge by pointing relatively where each thing would be if they were there.
It's not limited in scope as far as I can tell. Though it is kind of limited in resolution. The bigger the area I am scanning, the less detail I can recall about it when I am not there, or "looking through walls". But when I am there, I can go as fine grained as the search demands, just takes longer.
A Coast G20 flashlight is about $10 on Amazon, and has a very tight spotlight circle "inspection" beam. It's my go-to for searching because it makes you focus on a small area.
Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It's amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.
My wife's Italian. Replace your items with always having a bottle of sauce and a packet of pasta in the cupboard, and there's always a meal to be had no matter how empty the fridge is.
My GF is Italian too. One of the most important things I learned from her is literally this. Also, as long as you have any kind of vegetables in your house, you are always one step away from a pasta sauce.
100% For us, a passata, an onion, and some garlic is the minimum needed.
Probably helps that the FIL delivers us boxes of homemade passata all the time - we never have less than a dozen bottles on our storage shelves in the garage. But even if we were to ever run out, a couple of store-bought bottles in the pantry is our fallback option.
Drink water instead of soda, alcohol, other sugary drinks. Eventually you'll find yourself to be an expert water connoisseur and prefer water over pretty much all beverages.
Sometimes I indulge in a coke but I usually prefer tap water now.
When I was in the end of my PhD, everything except writing my thesis made me feel guilty. I ended up learning to find joy and peace in doing laundry and washing dishes. They became my guilt-free breaks — I had to do these things. FYI - I didn’t enjoy washing dishes before.
Washing dishes has become a really powerful part of my day, haha. Not only is it still a guilt-free break but it is a daily reminder to be mindful. I’ve noticed that whenever I drop and break a dish, my mind is not present. In fact, in those moments my mind might actually be drifting somewhere negative.
Maybe not so much a “hack” as a … lesson? Or something? But yeah, the whole cliche about having the right attitude and being present and mindful. I try to apply it in other parts of life, not just the dishes.
You have discovered the subtle art of procrasticleaning
Yeah I was like wow I am so enlightened for the first part of the response and then I was like oh my god I am so seen. I. Am. The. Best. At. Doing. The. Second. Most. Important. Thing. I. Need. To. Do.
The flip side of this is productive procrastination, where you do all the menial tasks before doing the task you don't want to do. Generally you aren't even aware you're doing and most people can go their entire lives never knowing the term exists, and yet they'll do it all the time.
everything except ... made me feel guilty
learning to find joy
guilty free breaks
How‽ This is perhaps the single most impactful problem I've in my life. I just don't know how to beat this. I don't end up doing anything else because I could be doing my thesis. But I also don't do my thesis. Could you talk a bit more about how you got out of this line of thinking? Between this and ADHD I feel like I'm going suicidal. I haven't had a vacation/gap/break ever where I've felt free and happy to enjoy.
This is a great way to think. Some people are so frustrated with waiting in line at the bank or market. For me, it's just another unintended break where I get to relax.
Bananas are the way they are through millenia of selective breeding, so there's no reason to think that monkeys know anything we don't. If pinching the bottom is easier than bending the stem, your banana isn't ripe yet and doesn't want to be eaten until later.
Have you ever tried opening a banana from the bottom like described in the comment?
Yes. Every time, it's gone less well than opening a banana from the stem end, unless the banana was horrendously underripe. I've never had the problem the alternative approach is claiming to fix unless I've intentionally opened the banana badly on purpose to prove a point about the problem really being people opening from the stem end incompetently.
While I can concede your point that it's feasible and possibly even more practical to open from the stem, I gotta say that since switching to the other end years ago(because I saw a similar thread on reddit), it's been super easy and I've had zero issues. The stem just has a higher rate of fucking up, but it's not like either end will fully decimate the banana. Peeling properly after it's opened is an easy fix either way.
A) that seems backwards: an under ripe banana will be stiff inside so you can snap the peel around the stem when you bend it, while a riper, softer banana will mush inside when you bend the stem. And,
B) like I give a fuck what a banana wants
A) The peel becomes easier to tear faster than the inside gets softer. You don't need to snap it, it doesn't need nearly enough tension to count as a snap once it's ripe.
B) The banana's been selectively bred to want to be as delicious as possible. It only wants you to be happy.
I'd like to apologize for my remarks regarding banana
Take one end in each hand, hold it "like a frown" in front of you.
Bend it in half downward and bite the peak of the bend with one of your canines.
when it snaps open, shove one half of the banana into your mouth, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
Shovel the other half into your mount, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
I was today-years-old when I learned the ideal way to eat a banana.
My partner hates when I open bananas like this because there's a little dark part of the banana under that end of the peel that she calls "The Ban-anus" and thinks it's gross even if I pick off that part and don't eat it.
I don't get the banana trick. What do I do after pinching? I just end up ripping through the skin of one while trying it out.
Safety razors - I've got thick growth and I was spending more and more on expensive multi-blade razors trying to find a decent shave without the blade going dull after 3 uses. The answer was to have less, better quality blades rather than the expensive trash in the market. A safety razor multipack costs a pittance and has lasted me over a year. Each blade is 2 sided and can be flipped. And when you're done with it, it can be recycled with no plastic waste. There's literally no down side if you wet shave.
Electric screwdriver - it doesn't matter how much DIY you do or how rarely you make IKEA furniture, you still need an electric screwdriver.
Brain hacks - your brain and body are predictable physical objects that are programmed a certain way. If you take the time to learn how they work, you can use that to your advantage. e.g. If you know that procrastination isn't a time management problem, but rather an emotional regulation problem about the task that's due; then you can start addressing the cause. Or if you want to build a new habit, you can combine it with something you like, to make you look forward to it (e.g. pick a TV show you really want to watch and only allow yourself to watch it while you're on the treadmill). Or realise that discipline and motivation are finite resources in the day. There's too much info to cover here, but I learn about these things from podacsts mostly:
"Good enough" tech - You will save a lot of money if you define your use case for tech and then buy a product that is good enough to do the job (and preferably secondhand). I'm currently writing this out on a laptop I bought last week for £150 from eBay, brand new condition Dell, Intel 8th gen i7, 16GB RAM and half TB NVME drive. My gym TV is a £30 IPS Dell monitor with a Fire TV stick.
Facebook Marketplace - make a dummy account for a facebook marketplace. I have bought tons of "like new" things in brand new condition (e.g. a whole home weights gym setup) for a fraction of brand new price. Also if there's anything I want to get rid of, then I just post it for sale. I have had a completely worn out, cosmetically destroyed desk that I posted online for £1. Someone came and collected it the same day. It saved me a trip to the junkyard by having someone come collect it and saved the waste by going to someone who will use it. 2nd pro tip: never post anything for free. Scumbag entitled people monitor facebook for free deals and you will have a bad time. Post things for £1 and you'll get serious people who will be grateful.
Accept what you can't change - your life will be much better if you stop spending energy pushing against things you can't influence. Traffic cop walking away after giving you a ticket? Accept the hit and walk away. You took a risk not paying for parking, it didn't work out. Go home and tell your spouse about it; then move on with your life.
I have given away things I state are broken but if someone wants to try and fix them it's free on Marketplace. I did not have to take one thing to the dump when I moved last time this way. The guy messaged me later and said he was able to get a new pump for my old espresso machine and get it working nicely, so good for him.
If you're looking at a used car, enter the vin number into Google. It will often bring up photos from any auctions it went through and you might see that it had been in a wreck and fixed without being reported to Carfax.
Not exactly life hacks, but shortcuts that can help computer users:
holding CTRL and pressing the arrow keys will move the text cursor whole words, instead of 1 character at a time. Also works with Delete and Backspace
CTRL + Home will move the cursor to the start of the file, CTRL + End to the end of the file or textbox.
Windows 10 users can use the Xbox bar to record their screens. By default, the shortcut is Windows button + Alt + R
For anyone that uses the sink to wash dishes, have a net/grid to cover the hole. Once it's full, just pick it up and dump the contents in your food trash.
You can use any type of soap to create barriers that ants will avoid. If you plug a hole with some soap (try a piece of soap bar that's wet/soft), the ants won't reopen it.
When I was a kid, a family of mice went to town on some scented glycerine soap bars my mom had in a drawer. Little fuckers loved that shit.
So maybe not glycerine soap for the anti-ant hack.
Both of those are brilliant. I can put the 2nd one to use in the next 10 min.
Cinnamon works wonders against ants. Just put a little down where they are coming in. They won't walk on it, and it messes up their ability to follow pheromone trails.
If you absolutely want to kill them for some reason, the liquid borax baits seem to work the best in my area. Just make sure they cannot be reached by pets or small children.
People wonder why I’m an optimist. I’m not really. What I do is expect people to disappoint me. After all, none of us are perfect. When they don’t I’m surprised. When they do, I’m not mad, as just met my expectations.
I find people who don’t like other people expect them to not disappoint them and when they do they get angry and upset. It’s really just a mindset change.
Yours is a somewhat more cynical way of writing it down, but the underlying mindset is one I share.
I prefer to see it as not expecting anything from anyone, rather than expecting them to disappoint you. It’s basically the same, but doesn’t feel as cynical.
It truly changes your life though, no matter how you see it. I can’t remember myself having been, in real life, angry or disappointed in people in great many years. Life is just so much better without those feelings, which seems obvious, but you can’t really emphasis that enough still.
It took me years of self-reflecting and “finding myself” in the process of overcoming a years-long bout of clinical depression. It’s not easy, but I do believe everyone can find that mindset, given enough effort and perseverance. Sisu.
And to not linger on something negative.
Missed the train? Damn. Shit. Oh well *shrug*
Got 360 no scoped from across the map and now are mad? Idk, slap you thigh and carry on.
Fucked a chore up (or might not even be responsible for the fuck-up) and now your parent is mad? Apologize (if applicable) and carry on. No need to cook in madness.
You can often get a Pre Purchase Inspection (PPI) for about $200 from a mechanic that will tell you everything in depth about the health of a car before you actually buy it.
Way too many people out here purchasing cars and then bringing it to a mechanic only to realize they've been ripped off or bought an expensive repair bill.
You should do it with any used car you have a strong intention to buy whether it is a private sale or from a lot.
Usually lots will want to negotiate the price first because any used car will have some wear and tear.
But the point is that you'll know for sure it there's any critical issues with the vehicle. If it's a lemon, you can say no and walk away. Don't think of it as losing $200, think of it as saving several thousand on a broken car.
If you use the same mechanic on a fairly regular basis, they will generally do this type inspection for free. They don't want to deal with a lemon any more than you do.
Buying lots of identical pairs of socks massively reduces the amount of time you need to find matching pairs after drying them.
I did this, and it was great at first. Then I needed more socks, so I bought another batch. Then I had a mix of worn socks and brand new socks. They might look the same at first, but if you take a closer look, the older ones are a little lighter in color and the texture isn't the same. I later bought a third batch. So now I have a mix of new, old, and really old socks. It actually takes more effort to match socks now than when I had many different socks.
I see this advice posted all the time, so I guess most people don't care if their socks on each foot are a different level of worn, but it bothers me.
I'm at this point too. I think the next step is to just declare sock bankruptcy again and throw everything out and start over.
In that case you could buy very visibly different socks from all the ones you have every time, eg blue vs white vs black vs beige. That also makes it easy to find matching pairs.
Works in most softwares. Also F1 often opens a help menu/manual (although those are usually kinda useless IMHO lol)
F3 lets you edit an Excel cell without using your damned mouse on Windows. So handy, I added the shortcut to my non-Windows setup.
On the topic of Excel, it's one of the few programs where the scroll lock key does something. It allows you to switch between moving the cell selection and scrolling with the arrow keys
I miss real keyboards for the numberpad and the Home and End and the Pages Up and Down. Plus all the satisfying noise they made. Had no idea I needed this, too.
If you have a goal to find something (eg. buy a car), write your goal down, including details like make and model. You'll start to see adverts, special deals and cars of the model you want parked with for sale signs. There's nothing mystical about this - you're surrounded by things like that, but the specific act of writing it seems to tell your unconscious mind to bring it to your attention when you pass them.
Using "≈" and "≠" sign on internet text.
These are literally long press options on the "=" key.
A physical keyboard has entered the chat
======================
Tried long pressing the "=" key. My keyboard is now egalitarian.
I hit the Compose key and then =/ gives ≠, but I don't seem to be able to enter ≈. For that and more obscure characters I'd open Emacs and run insert-char.
Start reading the nutritional facts on food packages. In the beginning it will make little sense. But as time goes by, you start understanding it a bit more and to notice patterns.
Eventually you start doing wiser choices. I've learned pretty quickly that the "healthy options" (e.g. low sugar cookies) are as bad for you than the regular ones.
Be sure to look at what they consider a serving size is when you do this. I've seen cases where you have something that is packaged as a single serving, but the nutritional facts say the serving size is half of that. I think this is just criminal. Like anyone would eat only half an instant ramen or whatever.
In the USA, this was supposed to be fixed in 2016 when the new nutrition facts label was introduced (the redesign that increased the font size of the calories).
By law, serving sizes must be based on the amount of food people typically consume, rather than how much they should consume.
Set up automatic bank transfers to chop your income into % parts: 5% play money, 20% savings, bills etc. do what works for you. Get rid of unnecessary subscriptions.
For water stuck in your ear after shower or swimming, what works for me is tilting your head to the side that is plugged and bending/unbending your knees (making your body bounce) until the water comes out.
Twerking?
Easier method, tilt your head towards the clogged side, and then pull down gently on your earlobe. This will let an air bubble past the water, and it all drains out almost instantly. No weird hokey-pokey dance required.
Given the opportunity move somewhere where your rent to pay ratio is better.
I'd make more living in a big city. I have much more leftover every month by living in a small town far away from everything.
Work-pay-lifestyle, I'd offer.
Our rent is high. Our pay is high. But almost everything I need is within a 10-minute walk. I haven't driven in months but I need new shoes and I'm 100% okay with that.
If I could move to a place with the same or better climate, keep my jobs and still have the daily living improvements of this area for a little cheaper, I would.
Even better, move countries while keeping your job if possible. Rent is now 3% of my salary after tax.
"Digital nomad, go home" is literally spray painted outside your window, right?
There's a HUD study that basically says the same thing. That people who receive housing vouchers and live in HCOL areas have better outcomes than people who live in LCOL areas. Not just because income to housing ratio is better, but also because of better education and job opportunities in high density areas.
You also have the advantage of percentage based employer retirement contributions and health insurance costs being relatively similar, so you're getting more benefit from higher pay.
If you ever forget / lose your wallet, you'll have a little cash.
With so many places now taking credit over cash, I’m not sure how relevant this is anymore.
I actually tried doing the opposite for a while. I’d leave my phone home and just leave the house with cash, keys, and a notebook. Lots of places gave me the stinkeye paying with cash and some places refused to accept it. I wish this weren’t the case. The percentage every business pays per credit card transaction hasn’t helped with inflated prices.
Not sure why someone would downvote your opinion and relevant story there...
It still seems relevant enough though for the time being. Getting the stink eye isn't a no, and maybe you'll have to be a little picky on where.
This will sound stupid. But if you press your thumb onto the center of your hand, and then close the others fingers around and press, you'll suppress your gag reflex.
This saved me when I had to take some medicine as big pills. Without this trick they often got stuck in my throat, and it could take me minutes to properly swallow. With the trick? No problems anymore.
This is the only kind of comment where I miss the r place.
Create a tentative schedule working backwards from that date. Include dates for completing main tasks.
Give extra time in the schedule for minor setbacks between tasks.
Give extra time in the schedule for a potential major setback overall.
For example, let's say the goal is to paint a house:
I can say I want it painted in 2 months, so I set it for the date of 9/17/24.
I figure I can paint a room every other day, so since the house has 5 rooms total, I think I can start painting 10 days before on 9/07/24. However, I need to consider that finding and purchasing paint and equipment will take time too. I think about it and consider that paint shopping can take me 2 days since I want to try out several stores, so the newer date is 9/05/24.
Now, I add some room for minor setbacks between each task. Rather than assuming I will paint every other day, I add two days in between. That means starting on 8/30/24. This allows me to take my time with rooms, skip a day if I feel tired, or adjust if I the rooms take longer to paint than I had anticipated for whatever reason. I also increase the time allotted for acquiring materials because so many things can happen: traffic, tired, unhappy with selection, need time to test samples and ask people, etc. Rather than only include 2 days for this, I include a whole week so I can see the paint samples on the walls and see which ones feel the best. We are not starting on 8/23/24.
Lastly, maybe something major could happen, such as getting sick, the store runs out of paint stock, my car breaks down, or I change my mind on one of the paint colors after seeing it up on the wall. I might even realize that I completely overlooked tasks, such as rearranging furniture, painting over errors/accidents, and clean up. I would then add a cushion of 2 weeks to the schedule to allow for that should it happen. So the actual start date is 8/9/24. This is much sooner than if we had gone with the original start date of 9/07/24, almost an entire month!
With this style of planning, I can take my sweet time, enjoy the process, and not get stressed out if something unexpected comes up. If I finish early, then I have extra time to work on details or enjoy the rest.
Whenever you are loading the washing machine, or hanging the laundry to dry/loading the dryer, don't put the socks straight away. If you get one sock, set it aside, and wait to have the other sock before putting them wherever they need to go. This way you drastically reduce the amount of odd socks/ socks with no pair.
If you find a single sock when you're at the dryer, look for it in the washing or on the floor; you know it has to be there because you make the habit of always loading the pair. If you have a single sock at the washer, don't wash it; wait until you find the other one, keep it in your basket.
I have a mountain of matching socks. They’re all pairs. I’m living in the year 4024. It’s very warm btw.
I intentionally wear mismatched socks. It's an homage to one of my heroes.
I wash all my socks together in a mesh laundry bag and then dump it out into the dryer. Much faster than trying to match wet socks when moving the load.
If you have a toilet that, when flushed, turns your shower into lava, adjust the toilet filler valve so it's barely open and you'll have much less of a problem.
Also, if the water coming out of your faucet is hot enough to harm you, turn down the temperature of your water heater. You will save quite a bit of money too.
Edit: and check the anode in your water heater every 5-ish years. So much cheaper and easier to replace that than the entire tank. Pay attention to your water heater.
A ghetto bidet: 3D print it, or take a small softdrink bottle, make a hole in it's neck using a hot needle or corkscrew. Fill it with water, hold it upside down and squirt your butthole clean with it. Use a little toiletpaper or cloth to dab it dry. Can't live without it anymore.
Thanks pal. The phosphoric acid in the soda burnt my asshole. Now I cant wipe at all.
But then again, I grew up eating ripe, if not nearly overripe avocados, the kind whose flesh would turn into mush if you try to grab them. So, yeah, I would just slice the avocado in half (going around the pit), remove the pit, and then scoop out the flesh.
If you are cramped for storage space for cleaning supplies, you can buy and hang a shoe cubby on the back of a closet door and use it to store all sorts of things.
There’s different types, such as ones that are actual racks and others that are pockets like this:
Do a bunch of things at once, not in parallel, but in series.
It makes sure I'm staying in the mood of being productive and keeps myself motivated, as I can keep focusing on the tasks. Of course, still take breaks if you need it.
Rinse your dishes after eating. This Kris6 the food shmutz from turning into a crust you'll have to scour off and won't wash off completely in the dishwasher.
This should be unnecessary when your dishwasher is working correctly.
I used to live with people who actually refused to rinse their dishes when they were done.
One time, they tossed their salad Tupperware in the sink while it was sealed closed, and literally had like half the salad left in it. They didn't bother trying to throw it away when they were done with it at work, or when they got home. It was sitting there for a couple days by the time I went to do the dishes. Also they'd regularly invite friends over, cook them dinner, and then leave the dishes for me to do the next day.
If you want to open a padlock and don't have the key, you can almost certainly break it open with 2 big wrenches.
I only had 1 opportunity to try that yet, when removing a 20 year old lock some stupid kid left on my stuff and then forgot where I put the key, but man did it feel empowering.
You can practice this trick at any romantic bridge. Do you really think whoever etched their initials on the lock is still together and would notice? Please
When cutting onions, set the cutting board on the stove and turn on the extractor fan. No more tears!
I worked at a factory that produced food with onion as one of the main ingredients. The best trick was to breathe with the mouth. Breathing with my nose would always make my eyes cry.
Got some domed glass pot lids but the one you need broke? Simply invert the handle on the next size up and you get a universal lid that fits any pan!
Condensation pools in the middle instead of dripping over the sides.
When given the option, read the instructions, and save for future reference. (A URL / bookmark doesn't count as saving unless you control the hostname (including DNS).)
I always read these and go "fuck yeah I could stand to feel like a new bloke as well" and then I remember I don't drink and thus can't quit it either. Fuck the baseline.
You wanna try some crack? You could sprinkle a little on your cereal & then work really hard to kick the habit.
Improve the cold tolerance and immunity by going to sauna during cold days.
Embrace the cold and don't overheat yourself by wearing too many layers.
When go cycling or running don't wear to many clothes, so you won't overheat yourself. You should feel slight cold and the exercise will heat you.
People usually catch flu due to low immunity or overheating and switching between environments of high temperature difference.
I think that flu thing is an old wives tale. You usually get flu because you breathed it in. The association with cold is because during cold weather people spend more time in poorly ventilated areas.
Getting a Shavette. The prospect of it being sharper than a straight razor makes you think that you will slice your face off, but in my experience at worst I had a nick or 2. The blades are dirt cheap and perform better than multi bladed razors.
A nice bonus is you have no plastic waste.
safety razor is the way to go imo. Same benefits of a shavette but easier to use and harder to cut yourself
Not really a life hack but: folding bicycles are so, so convenient for everyday use (fits in every elevator, fits under your desk at work, fits in public transportation even when it's crowded, etc)
I really don't know how they are not a lot more common; you only need a mountain bike if you actually ride on mountain trails often enough. Even non-folding city bicycles are way more comfortable for everyday usage (higher handlebar position and cushiony saddle <3)
Wrestle the pig first, every day. Whatever is your worst, most unpleasant, annoying task for the entire day, do it before you do anything else. It minimizes your stress and worrying and puts it in the rearview mirror.
For a second I thought you were talking about masturbation.
Well yeah crank your hog first of course
SPEAK UP BROTHER, I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY CRANKED HOG
AROOOOOO
Spank the monkey
Filbert and Heffer playing "Spank the Monkey"
Oh bay bee, oh bay bee, oh bay bee.
Rocko?
Mrs. Bighead?
simultaneous phone slam
Choke the chicken.
Flog the dolphin
Bash the bishop
Ok, I wrestled a cop and pinned him. What’s step 2? Please respond before his backup arrives.
I think you're supposed to tickle his balls now.
Alternatively, if you’re neurodivergent you may have a better time doing the easiest tasks first to build momentum and motivation.
Yeah, everyone’s neurochemistry is different and should be experimented with.
I didn’t know this for so long, that I needed a few easy wins to set the pace, that I feel like I could have been way more productive throughout my 20s haha
My former mentor said: 80% of the deliverable is the 20% of the scope you really don't want to do
Human memory is bias towards most recent things in a group set. If your set is a "workout" or a "workday", doing the fun stuff last will affect positively all the memory items in the same group set. This works even if you know that your memory is doing this.
We don't live in a "present now". We live in a mental image constructed from memory of recent past.
Trick is not to do unpleasant stuff first, but to do pleasant stuff last.
I feel like saying "I have to do this before anything else" might very well end with me doing nothing
I always heard it as "Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day". Same meaning, and I think I like yours better.
I don't think "waking up early" counts, but it's definitely the most unpleasant and annoying task of my weekdays, followed closely by actually getting to work.
I have some paperwork to do that will likely result in $2000. It's been over a year and i cannot just sit down and do it. I stress over it every day but continue to put it off.
I know this as 'eat your frogs'.
To stop infinite scroll on social media, quickly scroll 2-3 screen lengths down without looking at the posts. Now read the posts scrolling up. Eventually you'll reach where you started and most probably the laziness to go all the way back will prompt you to exit the app.
That's amazing!
Now give me a tip to prevent myself from opening the same app immediately after hahaha
Instead of closing an app, shutdown the phone. Now it's a pain to reopen the app.
With how fast phones start up nowadays, that's hardly a pain
New tip: Install bloatware to make it slower
I changed the icon location, and my muscle memory still was trying to open them from the previous location, basically in a complete auto-pilot mode. That led me to a realization of how fucked up the situation was, and eventually helped me uninstall/reduce screen time of those apps.
For some reason I always have a habit of scroll to the bottom of any list and reading up. Like I wanna confirm how long the list is before working my way up
How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.
Or soda. Or sugary drinks in general.
I hate the talk about soda. It's a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn't killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed. -stepping off my soapbox-
Fruit juice is notorious for this.
'but its fruit juice! Its 100% natural!'
Most still have added sugars on top of the fact that most of the fruit has been squeezed out only leaving... Sugars.
Even on their own, the natural fruit sugars aren't enough to make drinking fruit juice "healthy" when all the fiber has been squeezed out.
But the one two punch of sugars is just as bad as any other sugary drink.
Same with cans of Arizona or Snapple or anything else. It's all terrible.
People don't realize that ultra processed food is basically everything they eat and drink. There are very few things that aren't, and they're mostly whole food adjacent.
If it's not straight up water and plain vegetables, fruit, and grain equivalents, it's more than likely ultra processed no matter how healthy it claims to be.
So much of non-genetic cancers comes from what we ingest willingly. A large portion of it would stop if everyone ate a well rounded whole foods diet. But shit is expensive, takes time and kwh to make, and people are busy trying to enjoy life.
Conventional Cereal? Terrible. https://www.livestrong.com/article/13774827-is-eating-cereal-every-day-bad/
Certain processed fiber gives you liver cancer Ffs lol.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/diets-high-in-processed-fiber-may-increase-risk-of-liver-cancer-in-some-people
The problem isn’t carbonation (Bubly, Liquid Death have 0g). The problem is carbonated sugary drinks typically have more sugar than other sugary drinks, not a rule but per amount sold.
The typical soda has 38g of sugar per 12oz (can). Google states the following: Coca-Cola is 45g. Mountain Dew is 46g. Redbull and Monster are 34g. Arizona Sweet Tea is 31g. Apple juice is 33g. Orange juice is 28g. Cranberry juice is 42g.
Anything over 28g is no go territory for me. Anything under is generally not an issue blood sugar wise for me. Note: I am not diabetic.
I try not to drink calories at all, but if I do, it's considered part of the meal.
I strongly recommend this, as strongly as reading the news everyday. Don't watch or listen to it, READ it. It makes you conscious of your participation, makes it easier to remember, and over time, will sharpen your critical thinking skills
If you've ever thought 'holy fuck some people are dumb', well, if they read the news on the reg, they'd be less and less dumb, everyday.
I feel like there's a subtlety here. Ocassional Glass of wine with dinner versus binge drinking.
Of course the problem is that the first drink makes then next one more attractive and degrades impulse control... so YMMV.
One is too many and a thousand is never enough.
Edit: I do get the irony of someone with my username posting this. I understand what's wrong with binge drinking and me in general, I'm just not ready to fix it.
You and I are in the same place.
Well, I’m not in Texas, but I’m with you otherwise.
I’ll fix it sometime. Hopefully soon.
We're gonna be alright, buddy.
Thank ya. We definitely are. My problem is, drinkin’ makes everything SO MUCH FUN. If it just wasn’t so damn fun, it wouldn’t be an issue
I was entirely satisfied enjoying that irony.
Having a glass of wine every day is not healthy.
Agreed, my intent was occasional. I shall go and put that word in.
I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.
But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.
Yep. For me it made the week so much easier..wake up fresher, work out easier, handle job tasks smoother.
Friday night have fun. Wednesday? Nah. Tea please.
Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.
One time I was in Mexico with my wife while our daughter was still a baby and the lady at the front desk of the hotel where we were staying offered us a crib we could borrow. It was a kind gesture, but I was a little concerned because the crib seemed wobbly. I realized there were some screws loose but though I had a multitool on me, the holes were stripped.
So later, I was talking with a local and he's like "I can fix that." He comes over and pulls a pack of toothpicks out of his pocket. He sticks one into each hole and breaks it off so that it's not sticking out anymore. Then he drives the screw back in. I shook the crib after that and it was rock solid!
Now I always keep some toothpicks handy. Fast-forward to just this year. My daughter is now an adult living in a condo, and was complaining the screw popped out of a kitchen cabinet door when her roommate yanked on it too hard. "I can fix that."
Wood glue and/or toothpicks are probably stronger than the particle board most furniture is made of nowadays, it's repairing and strengthening.
Another adjacent life hack is when assembling flat pack furniture, use a quality wood glue on all the joints and connectors, but especially those little wood dowels. It won't make it indestructible, but it'll hold up far better over time.
It works a bit better if you put a little bit of wood glue on the tip of each toothpick before driving it into the hole. Definitely a great trick!
Interesting. I will definitely pick some up! Thanks.
Also works with golf tees or dowels.
I’m so glad you posted this - my integrated fridge door has dropped slightly after being taken off and put back on when installed. Can’t really screw back into mdf/chipboard/whatever and I’ve been stressing about getting it fixed for months because whilst it’ll get worse over time, it technically works and no doubt the fitter would say I need to take the whole thing out and replace the side panel.
Thank you!
You can do something similar with damaged metal threads, instead of toothpicks using copper wire strands. Project Farm has a video on the technique comparing it to other fixes: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jknMrFOGMOQ
Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.
Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn't formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
Hey that's a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.
Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?
@dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I'd say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.
It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes” means. Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.
If you want to, add meat. If you don’t, do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)
If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, jollof, biryani, or equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)
There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.
This is the way.
You start frying an onion and then figure out what you're making for dinner.
There's a book that you should pickup..
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat
It really covers everything you'll need to be able to cook anything. They even made a 4 part series about it on Netflix.
I really like this. Do you have any resources I can check out that cover this?
A good example is The Curry Guy. Dan somebody?
Make a huge batch of base curry sauce, and then with a few more ingredients you can make dozens of Indian and Bangladeshi dishes
He's got loads of recipes on his site, but his book is really useful in a kitchen
I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.
The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.
I watch them both a ton, good stuff. Weissman can be a little snooty tho. K Keni Lopez-Alt is amazing 😍
I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it's super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.
This is the blogpost that inspired me https://rasamalaysia.com/green-tea-rice/
Not really a "hack" but I don't know why most people get into phone contracts.
Since college, I have always just bought unlocked phones with cash and then used the carrier's prepaid plans and set it to auto pay.
I pay so much less than most people I know, I get all the same service, and my phone isn't tied to a contract or carrier, so I can cancel my plan whenever I want and switch to another carrier by just buying their SIM card for ~$20.
My current phone is an unlocked Pixel 6a that I got on sale new for $300. I have unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month. And if I get sick of my current carrier or they bump my cost, I can just switch to anybody else for just the cost of a $20 SIM card.
I have so many friends and family members that complain about their phone bills being super high and their service sucking, but they can't cancel their contracts without paying off their huge balances plus the interest and usually cancelation fees. Plus, because their phone is tied to the contract/carrier, they can't even keep transfer the phone to the new carrier and have to get sucked into a "phone trade-in" deal and the cycle continues.
And for the folks saying that most people can't afford to save up and buy a phone outright, there are a lot of places that offer payment plans for the phone, or you can buy it on credit and pay it off that way, which would likely be less interest over time. Or you could buy unlocked used/refurbished phones for 25-50% off their normal price.
Maybe it makes sense if you get a stipend from your company, or you bundle it with a bunch of other packages like cable TV or internet, but for just a cell phone, I just don't get locking yourself into a crazy contract.
This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.
Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.
I believe a major factor in this was a ruling by the Hoge Raad that a "free" phone with a contract is unlawful and is actually a loan. Carriers now have to list the price for the phone and for the service separately, so it's a lot more clear what the costs of the phone are.
Also, a "free" phone is now registered as a loan with monthly recurring costs, which impacts for example the maximum mortgage you can get on a home.
Also in the Netherlands and I have recently extended this concept to my home internet. Since 25 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload is enough for my use, I no longer have an internet subscription and I make use of $25 LycaMobile unlimited data sim cards for home internet using a sim router. The IMEI of the router can be easily modified, which is also a plus.
Bonus points in that android phones won't have their bootloader encrypted by a cellular service provider.
It feels like the nineties/2000 just called :-D
I pay 10€/m for "unlimited" 5G (186GB/month IIRC).
Nice! Maybe Europe has it better, (wouldn't be the first time lol.)
Part of the problem is that we’re advertised at constantly, so when the latest, greatest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel comes along we feel like we need it. Because if we get the £1200 phone the resell value in two years will still be high, right? It actually makes sense.
But the only way to afford that is to borrow the money to pay for it.
I picked up an iPhone 13 mini last year, on a two year contract, for £29 a month. And that’s ok by me. By the end of my contract I’ll go SIM-only and my bill will drop to around £10 a month, which I’ll rock until Apple finally release another mini phone.
So this 13 mini will be the last phone I ever use…
I agree except who is charging you $20 for a sim?
Hell go to swappa.com and buy an unlocked used phone.160 and you can have a S20 which works perfectly.
Keep a set of swimwear in your car. If you go to a place and forgot your swimsuit? Got the backup. Go to a hotel and find out they had a pool you didn't know about? Backup in the car. Accidentally shit yourself? Got at least something on you. Do I shit myself enough to worry about it? Not since I was a baby but now I know I got swim trunks in my car just in case.
This works for so many occasions too. At a watermelon eating contest? Backup in the car. Going to a funeral? Backup in the car. Need to bury a body? Backup clothing, right there.
Carry two swimsuits: one for me and one for the recently departed.
"it's... it's what he would have wanted."
Oh right. Also bring your scriptures or a turntable with the two swimsuits so you can experiment with new material during the sendoff.
Does this work for horse funerals as well?
Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.
If you need to remember something for the next time you go out, put your shoes somewhere odd. When you go to leave, you'll remember you moved them, which will remind you why you moved them.
Or you won't be able to find your shoes, panic because you're running late, and forget about the thing you needed because of said panic.
That’s why you always leave a note.
If the note is with your shoes, does that make it a footnote?
Oh my god, that guys arm came off!
I'll usually put a reminder or most often the thing itself in the shoes.
This works even with abstractions.
Attaching an unrelated concept to another will help remember it.
I do it all the time by telling someone that I need to remember something... And clarify that I don't need a reminder, I just needed to tell someone.
If you can't find something and you've looked everywhere, get a flashlight and look again while pointing the flashlight. It has worked for me every time.
Further, if you drop something small, like a screw, set the flashlight on the floor. This will make all the small things cast long shadows and stand out way more.
Same, I found my flashlight that way
I laughed at this because I have around ten flashlights and have absolutely used a smaller flashlight to find my Emisar D4V2 or my beloved DT8
why 10 though? Why not just, say, your smartphone?
I dunno, I just got some and just… got more hahaha. Even my shittiest flashlights are way brighter than any smartphone’s LEDs.
I mainly keep them everywhere so I can quickly take important cat pictures. Shining the brighter ones at the ceiling makes for perfect lighting for indoor cat pics. I don’t like using flash on animals, and my I keep my room pretty dim. But gosh dangit cats are so cute.
I heard that, at least in countries where we read left to right, we also look for things left to right. And if you reverse this and look from right to left that you're more likely to notice something you otherwise missed. So I do that. But I have no data to confirm if it works...
I've heard from someone in the military that they teach you to scan from right to left and bottom to top if you have to stand watch/guard.
It probably stops your brain from going on autopilot.
You know the pop culture reference we use for someone who has misplaced their cellphone, "have you tried calling it?"
This will sound absolutely silly, but one day a friend was looking for some trinket which wasn't a phone, and playfully I asked, "Have you tried calling it?"
They doubled down and started actually calling it, "Trinket.... trinket, where are you?"
And wouldn't you know it, within minutes they found it, and so far this has worked about 99.9% of the time.
So like using a flashlight focuses your eyes, having someone call it out loud kind of quiets the mind, too. It's wild.
My mom prays to St. Anthony. #justcatholicthings
Tony Tony look around. Help me find what can't be found. Something like that?
Close! Don't forget to thank the saint when you find the item. ;)
It works, if only because it calms the mind and helps to regain perspective. #justanxiouscatholic
I use my hands to kind of do the same thing. It's probably the behaviour they modeled Monk's "hand thing" after. It still helps even if I'm searching using my memory and spatial awareness to recall and search through something I am not currently looking at. Somehow, narrowing the scope physically with my hands helps. It's probably a muscle memory or proprioception thing.
For example, if I want to find something to eat in the fridge. I generally won't be able to think of anything by just opening the fridge and looking through it. Unless there is something super obvious like a leftover pizza box or something else impossible to miss like that. Just trying to search by looking at each shelf only increases the odds of finding something by like 5%. But when I use my hand and slowly move it down the shelves, I can somehow think more clearly about what is on each shelf than I could without using my hand. And, as I mentioned, it also works even if I am no longer looking in the fridge. I can do it with the door closed and still more clearly recall what was on each shelf.
It also helps when scanning through my whole house looking for something, with and without currently having eyes on it. Like scanning through the whole house room by room while still sitting at my computer, I do a much better job if I am pointing my hand at the place I am thinking about as I scan.
I should probably mention I am Autistic, my spatial awareness and proprioception are two areas I have seemed to benefit. But it's very easy to get confused or distracted if I have too much information at once. So that is mostly what is going on. I can't just imagine that I am pointing at something in my imagination to gain the benefit, I have to be literally, physically pointing. Although I can translocate, like not be at my house or fridge and still scan my house or fridge by pointing relatively where each thing would be if they were there.
It's not limited in scope as far as I can tell. Though it is kind of limited in resolution. The bigger the area I am scanning, the less detail I can recall about it when I am not there, or "looking through walls". But when I am there, I can go as fine grained as the search demands, just takes longer.
A Coast G20 flashlight is about $10 on Amazon, and has a very tight spotlight circle "inspection" beam. It's my go-to for searching because it makes you focus on a small area.
Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It's amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.
My wife's Italian. Replace your items with always having a bottle of sauce and a packet of pasta in the cupboard, and there's always a meal to be had no matter how empty the fridge is.
My GF is Italian too. One of the most important things I learned from her is literally this. Also, as long as you have any kind of vegetables in your house, you are always one step away from a pasta sauce.
100% For us, a passata, an onion, and some garlic is the minimum needed.
Probably helps that the FIL delivers us boxes of homemade passata all the time - we never have less than a dozen bottles on our storage shelves in the garage. But even if we were to ever run out, a couple of store-bought bottles in the pantry is our fallback option.
Yes. And you can get all kinds of crap canned. The only thing I've found you can't really replace is crunchy greens.
I'm not surprised people don't know after decades of cold supply chain, but it's a thing.
Drink water instead of soda, alcohol, other sugary drinks. Eventually you'll find yourself to be an expert water connoisseur and prefer water over pretty much all beverages.
Sometimes I indulge in a coke but I usually prefer tap water now.
I love water so much I always add a splash to my whisky!
Almost all bottled water is loaded with microplastics. Ideally, drink water from a filtered tap.
It's okay, there storednin my balls for later
When I was in the end of my PhD, everything except writing my thesis made me feel guilty. I ended up learning to find joy and peace in doing laundry and washing dishes. They became my guilt-free breaks — I had to do these things. FYI - I didn’t enjoy washing dishes before.
Washing dishes has become a really powerful part of my day, haha. Not only is it still a guilt-free break but it is a daily reminder to be mindful. I’ve noticed that whenever I drop and break a dish, my mind is not present. In fact, in those moments my mind might actually be drifting somewhere negative.
Maybe not so much a “hack” as a … lesson? Or something? But yeah, the whole cliche about having the right attitude and being present and mindful. I try to apply it in other parts of life, not just the dishes.
You have discovered the subtle art of procrasticleaning
Yeah I was like wow I am so enlightened for the first part of the response and then I was like oh my god I am so seen. I. Am. The. Best. At. Doing. The. Second. Most. Important. Thing. I. Need. To. Do.
The flip side of this is productive procrastination, where you do all the menial tasks before doing the task you don't want to do. Generally you aren't even aware you're doing and most people can go their entire lives never knowing the term exists, and yet they'll do it all the time.
You can't fix a problem you can't identify.
You're welcome and I'm sorry.
How‽ This is perhaps the single most impactful problem I've in my life. I just don't know how to beat this. I don't end up doing anything else because I could be doing my thesis. But I also don't do my thesis. Could you talk a bit more about how you got out of this line of thinking? Between this and ADHD I feel like I'm going suicidal. I haven't had a vacation/gap/break ever where I've felt free and happy to enjoy.
This is a great way to think. Some people are so frustrated with waiting in line at the bank or market. For me, it's just another unintended break where I get to relax.
I call that productive procrastination.
You can just pinch the end of a banana to start peeling it. The effort required is far less than trying to overcome the ripping force of the stem.
Monkeys peel bananas also like this.
https://youtube.com/shorts/c6kNX2HusaM
I love how it skillfully peels the banana and then eats the peel anyway. Amazing.
Bananas are the way they are through millenia of selective breeding, so there's no reason to think that monkeys know anything we don't. If pinching the bottom is easier than bending the stem, your banana isn't ripe yet and doesn't want to be eaten until later.
Have you ever tried opening a banana from the bottom like described in the comment?
Yes. Every time, it's gone less well than opening a banana from the stem end, unless the banana was horrendously underripe. I've never had the problem the alternative approach is claiming to fix unless I've intentionally opened the banana badly on purpose to prove a point about the problem really being people opening from the stem end incompetently.
While I can concede your point that it's feasible and possibly even more practical to open from the stem, I gotta say that since switching to the other end years ago(because I saw a similar thread on reddit), it's been super easy and I've had zero issues. The stem just has a higher rate of fucking up, but it's not like either end will fully decimate the banana. Peeling properly after it's opened is an easy fix either way.
A) that seems backwards: an under ripe banana will be stiff inside so you can snap the peel around the stem when you bend it, while a riper, softer banana will mush inside when you bend the stem. And,
B) like I give a fuck what a banana wants
A) The peel becomes easier to tear faster than the inside gets softer. You don't need to snap it, it doesn't need nearly enough tension to count as a snap once it's ripe.
B) The banana's been selectively bred to want to be as delicious as possible. It only wants you to be happy.
I'd like to apologize for my remarks regarding banana
And then you have a handle to hold it by when you get to the end (beginning?)!
I just use my fingernail to make a small cut at the stem end and then it's super easy to peel that back
That's way too slow.
Take one end in each hand, hold it "like a frown" in front of you.
Bend it in half downward and bite the peak of the bend with one of your canines.
when it snaps open, shove one half of the banana into your mouth, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
Shovel the other half into your mount, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
I was today-years-old when I learned the ideal way to eat a banana.
My partner hates when I open bananas like this because there's a little dark part of the banana under that end of the peel that she calls "The Ban-anus" and thinks it's gross even if I pick off that part and don't eat it.
I don't get the banana trick. What do I do after pinching? I just end up ripping through the skin of one while trying it out.
Fuck you, I'll keep peeling the banana stem-first!
This also prevents those weird banana strings from forming!
https://www.drlauriesantos.com/happiness-lab-podcast
https://www.schwab.com/learn/choiceology
https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/
https://hiddenbrain.org/
Now that implies a lot
I have given away things I state are broken but if someone wants to try and fix them it's free on Marketplace. I did not have to take one thing to the dump when I moved last time this way. The guy messaged me later and said he was able to get a new pump for my old espresso machine and get it working nicely, so good for him.
If you're looking at a used car, enter the vin number into Google. It will often bring up photos from any auctions it went through and you might see that it had been in a wreck and fixed without being reported to Carfax.
Not exactly life hacks, but shortcuts that can help computer users:
For anyone that uses the sink to wash dishes, have a net/grid to cover the hole. Once it's full, just pick it up and dump the contents in your food trash.
You can use any type of soap to create barriers that ants will avoid. If you plug a hole with some soap (try a piece of soap bar that's wet/soft), the ants won't reopen it.
When I was a kid, a family of mice went to town on some scented glycerine soap bars my mom had in a drawer. Little fuckers loved that shit.
So maybe not glycerine soap for the anti-ant hack.
Both of those are brilliant. I can put the 2nd one to use in the next 10 min.
Cinnamon works wonders against ants. Just put a little down where they are coming in. They won't walk on it, and it messes up their ability to follow pheromone trails.
If you absolutely want to kill them for some reason, the liquid borax baits seem to work the best in my area. Just make sure they cannot be reached by pets or small children.
People wonder why I’m an optimist. I’m not really. What I do is expect people to disappoint me. After all, none of us are perfect. When they don’t I’m surprised. When they do, I’m not mad, as just met my expectations.
I find people who don’t like other people expect them to not disappoint them and when they do they get angry and upset. It’s really just a mindset change.
Yours is a somewhat more cynical way of writing it down, but the underlying mindset is one I share.
I prefer to see it as not expecting anything from anyone, rather than expecting them to disappoint you. It’s basically the same, but doesn’t feel as cynical.
It truly changes your life though, no matter how you see it. I can’t remember myself having been, in real life, angry or disappointed in people in great many years. Life is just so much better without those feelings, which seems obvious, but you can’t really emphasis that enough still.
It took me years of self-reflecting and “finding myself” in the process of overcoming a years-long bout of clinical depression. It’s not easy, but I do believe everyone can find that mindset, given enough effort and perseverance. Sisu.
And to not linger on something negative.
Missed the train? Damn. Shit. Oh well *shrug*
Got 360 no scoped from across the map and now are mad? Idk, slap you thigh and carry on.
Fucked a chore up (or might not even be responsible for the fuck-up) and now your parent is mad? Apologize (if applicable) and carry on. No need to cook in madness.
You can often get a Pre Purchase Inspection (PPI) for about $200 from a mechanic that will tell you everything in depth about the health of a car before you actually buy it.
Way too many people out here purchasing cars and then bringing it to a mechanic only to realize they've been ripped off or bought an expensive repair bill.
You should do it with any used car you have a strong intention to buy whether it is a private sale or from a lot.
Usually lots will want to negotiate the price first because any used car will have some wear and tear.
But the point is that you'll know for sure it there's any critical issues with the vehicle. If it's a lemon, you can say no and walk away. Don't think of it as losing $200, think of it as saving several thousand on a broken car.
If you use the same mechanic on a fairly regular basis, they will generally do this type inspection for free. They don't want to deal with a lemon any more than you do.
To live a hate free life, don’t spend time hating things and people.
Hate is not a feeling it’s an action. Just stop, and then you’re not a source of hate any more.
Except for Nazis. Always hate those guys.
Buying lots of identical pairs of socks massively reduces the amount of time you need to find matching pairs after drying them.
I did this, and it was great at first. Then I needed more socks, so I bought another batch. Then I had a mix of worn socks and brand new socks. They might look the same at first, but if you take a closer look, the older ones are a little lighter in color and the texture isn't the same. I later bought a third batch. So now I have a mix of new, old, and really old socks. It actually takes more effort to match socks now than when I had many different socks.
I see this advice posted all the time, so I guess most people don't care if their socks on each foot are a different level of worn, but it bothers me.
I'm at this point too. I think the next step is to just declare sock bankruptcy again and throw everything out and start over.
In that case you could buy very visibly different socks from all the ones you have every time, eg blue vs white vs black vs beige. That also makes it easy to find matching pairs.
I buy the same pairs from Costco. Problem is every year they change the pattern on the bottom. 2 gray bars next year solid next year 3 bars.
Same sock but dammit I have to get the matching bars.
You can rename files in Windows using the
F2key. This works for a lot of Microsoft products including editing a cell without overwriting it in Excel.F2 is universal, it's been there since before Microsoft. It also works on Linux and most independent software.
oh man this is huge given they put rename on the extended right click now
Works in most softwares. Also F1 often opens a help menu/manual (although those are usually kinda useless IMHO lol)
F3 lets you edit an Excel cell without using your damned mouse on Windows. So handy, I added the shortcut to my non-Windows setup.
On the topic of Excel, it's one of the few programs where the scroll lock key does something. It allows you to switch between moving the cell selection and scrolling with the arrow keys
I miss real keyboards for the numberpad and the Home and End and the Pages Up and Down. Plus all the satisfying noise they made. Had no idea I needed this, too.
If you have a goal to find something (eg. buy a car), write your goal down, including details like make and model. You'll start to see adverts, special deals and cars of the model you want parked with for sale signs. There's nothing mystical about this - you're surrounded by things like that, but the specific act of writing it seems to tell your unconscious mind to bring it to your attention when you pass them.
Using "≈" and "≠" sign on internet text.
These are literally long press options on the "=" key.
A physical keyboard has entered the chat
======================
Tried long pressing the "=" key. My keyboard is now egalitarian.
What about on desktop?
I hit the Compose key and then
=/gives≠, but I don't seem to be able to enter≈. For that and more obscure characters I'd open Emacs and runinsert-char.Gee, how did I ever live without knowing that? Are you a mathematician?
Start reading the nutritional facts on food packages. In the beginning it will make little sense. But as time goes by, you start understanding it a bit more and to notice patterns.
Eventually you start doing wiser choices. I've learned pretty quickly that the "healthy options" (e.g. low sugar cookies) are as bad for you than the regular ones.
Be sure to look at what they consider a serving size is when you do this. I've seen cases where you have something that is packaged as a single serving, but the nutritional facts say the serving size is half of that. I think this is just criminal. Like anyone would eat only half an instant ramen or whatever.
In the USA, this was supposed to be fixed in 2016 when the new nutrition facts label was introduced (the redesign that increased the font size of the calories).
https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/serving-size-nutrition-facts-label
Of course, there's still companies that skirt the rules.
Or just always look at the 100g column.
Set up automatic bank transfers to chop your income into % parts: 5% play money, 20% savings, bills etc. do what works for you. Get rid of unnecessary subscriptions.
I scrape CVV number of my credit card and save it on my smartphone because if I lost my credit card nobody will be able to shop on line
For water stuck in your ear after shower or swimming, what works for me is tilting your head to the side that is plugged and bending/unbending your knees (making your body bounce) until the water comes out.
Twerking?
Easier method, tilt your head towards the clogged side, and then pull down gently on your earlobe. This will let an air bubble past the water, and it all drains out almost instantly. No weird hokey-pokey dance required.
Given the opportunity move somewhere where your rent to pay ratio is better.
I'd make more living in a big city. I have much more leftover every month by living in a small town far away from everything.
Work-pay-lifestyle, I'd offer.
Our rent is high. Our pay is high. But almost everything I need is within a 10-minute walk. I haven't driven in months but I need new shoes and I'm 100% okay with that.
If I could move to a place with the same or better climate, keep my jobs and still have the daily living improvements of this area for a little cheaper, I would.
Even better, move countries while keeping your job if possible. Rent is now 3% of my salary after tax.
"Digital nomad, go home" is literally spray painted outside your window, right?
This guy Barcelonas
I’m sorry but what in the shit.
Boss is in Palo Alto and you’re in the no-data-found part of Greenland??
Greenland is surprisingly expensive. I'm actually in China right now, and will be off to Malaysia soon.
There's a HUD study that basically says the same thing. That people who receive housing vouchers and live in HCOL areas have better outcomes than people who live in LCOL areas. Not just because income to housing ratio is better, but also because of better education and job opportunities in high density areas.
You also have the advantage of percentage based employer retirement contributions and health insurance costs being relatively similar, so you're getting more benefit from higher pay.
T-shirts take up much less space if you roll them. So do most other clothes, but it's a huge gain with the T-shirts.
Yes! The ranger roll.. https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/how-to/how-to-pack-a-bag-using-the-ranger-roll/
Plus then it's easier to tell what's been worn!
Put $20-50 behind your phone in the phone case.
If you ever forget / lose your wallet, you'll have a little cash.
With so many places now taking credit over cash, I’m not sure how relevant this is anymore.
I actually tried doing the opposite for a while. I’d leave my phone home and just leave the house with cash, keys, and a notebook. Lots of places gave me the stinkeye paying with cash and some places refused to accept it. I wish this weren’t the case. The percentage every business pays per credit card transaction hasn’t helped with inflated prices.
Not sure why someone would downvote your opinion and relevant story there...
It still seems relevant enough though for the time being. Getting the stink eye isn't a no, and maybe you'll have to be a little picky on where.
Still better than not having it at all though.
This will sound stupid. But if you press your thumb onto the center of your hand, and then close the others fingers around and press, you'll suppress your gag reflex.
This saved me when I had to take some medicine as big pills. Without this trick they often got stuck in my throat, and it could take me minutes to properly swallow. With the trick? No problems anymore.
This is the only kind of comment where I miss the r place.
I also use this for pills.
Just for pills.
The pills.
Yes.
Reading the Communist Manifesto.
Yes comrade!
It’s like I’ve been waiting for this question for 8 years.
Good stuff
When working on long-term goals:
For example, let's say the goal is to paint a house:
I can say I want it painted in 2 months, so I set it for the date of 9/17/24.
I figure I can paint a room every other day, so since the house has 5 rooms total, I think I can start painting 10 days before on 9/07/24. However, I need to consider that finding and purchasing paint and equipment will take time too. I think about it and consider that paint shopping can take me 2 days since I want to try out several stores, so the newer date is 9/05/24.
Now, I add some room for minor setbacks between each task. Rather than assuming I will paint every other day, I add two days in between. That means starting on 8/30/24. This allows me to take my time with rooms, skip a day if I feel tired, or adjust if I the rooms take longer to paint than I had anticipated for whatever reason. I also increase the time allotted for acquiring materials because so many things can happen: traffic, tired, unhappy with selection, need time to test samples and ask people, etc. Rather than only include 2 days for this, I include a whole week so I can see the paint samples on the walls and see which ones feel the best. We are not starting on 8/23/24.
Lastly, maybe something major could happen, such as getting sick, the store runs out of paint stock, my car breaks down, or I change my mind on one of the paint colors after seeing it up on the wall. I might even realize that I completely overlooked tasks, such as rearranging furniture, painting over errors/accidents, and clean up. I would then add a cushion of 2 weeks to the schedule to allow for that should it happen. So the actual start date is 8/9/24. This is much sooner than if we had gone with the original start date of 9/07/24, almost an entire month!
With this style of planning, I can take my sweet time, enjoy the process, and not get stressed out if something unexpected comes up. If I finish early, then I have extra time to work on details or enjoy the rest.
Whenever you are loading the washing machine, or hanging the laundry to dry/loading the dryer, don't put the socks straight away. If you get one sock, set it aside, and wait to have the other sock before putting them wherever they need to go. This way you drastically reduce the amount of odd socks/ socks with no pair.
If you find a single sock when you're at the dryer, look for it in the washing or on the floor; you know it has to be there because you make the habit of always loading the pair. If you have a single sock at the washer, don't wash it; wait until you find the other one, keep it in your basket.
I have a mountain of matching socks. They’re all pairs. I’m living in the year 4024. It’s very warm btw.
I intentionally wear mismatched socks. It's an homage to one of my heroes.
I wash all my socks together in a mesh laundry bag and then dump it out into the dryer. Much faster than trying to match wet socks when moving the load.
Using a rubber band around the lid of a jar to open it effortlessly.
Switching off your phone. It changes everything.
I just discovered the best hack, I changed the app layout on my home screen (android) to 5x5 what a game changer.
Everyone uses something less than Xx5? Damn. Poor folks. :(
Did anyone else have to go home & count?
I'm not very clever.
I'm pretty sure the default is 4 and the vast majority of smartphone users will never even change this setting.
If you have a toilet that, when flushed, turns your shower into lava, adjust the toilet filler valve so it's barely open and you'll have much less of a problem.
Also, if the water coming out of your faucet is hot enough to harm you, turn down the temperature of your water heater. You will save quite a bit of money too.
Edit: and check the anode in your water heater every 5-ish years. So much cheaper and easier to replace that than the entire tank. Pay attention to your water heater.
A pressure cooker
A ghetto bidet:
3D print it, or take a small softdrink bottle, make a hole in it's neck using a hot needle or corkscrew. Fill it with water, hold it upside down and squirt your butthole clean with it. Use a little toiletpaper or cloth to dab it dry. Can't live without it anymore.
Thanks pal. The phosphoric acid in the soda burnt my asshole. Now I cant wipe at all.
Responding to every accusation with "Nuh uh!"
Look at what you're doing and using spacial reasoning.
So many days, I think I was the only person at my work who played with 3d puzzles or Legos growing up.
Duct tape your heart to someone else's heart, double heart, so EASY. DOCTORS HATE!!!
The doctor already knows this trick
People who try and peel whole avocados amaze me.
I think in general there's a lot of fruit hacks that folks aren't familiar with - it pays to search the web for "How to peel X".
Does one peel an avocado? I've always used a knife to cut to the core all the way around and pull it apart, then scoop out the flesh.
Cut in half, remove core, scoop with a spoon.
Wait, what? Peel avocados? Just why?
But then again, I grew up eating ripe, if not nearly overripe avocados, the kind whose flesh would turn into mush if you try to grab them. So, yeah, I would just slice the avocado in half (going around the pit), remove the pit, and then scoop out the flesh.
If you are cramped for storage space for cleaning supplies, you can buy and hang a shoe cubby on the back of a closet door and use it to store all sorts of things.
There’s different types, such as ones that are actual racks and others that are pockets like this:
Do a bunch of things at once, not in parallel, but in series.
It makes sure I'm staying in the mood of being productive and keeps myself motivated, as I can keep focusing on the tasks. Of course, still take breaks if you need it.
Rinse your dishes after eating. This Kris6 the food shmutz from turning into a crust you'll have to scour off and won't wash off completely in the dishwasher.
This should be unnecessary when your dishwasher is working correctly.
https://youtu.be/jHP942Livy0?si=lRl7aIDMI3I4qxOM
I used to live with people who actually refused to rinse their dishes when they were done.
One time, they tossed their salad Tupperware in the sink while it was sealed closed, and literally had like half the salad left in it. They didn't bother trying to throw it away when they were done with it at work, or when they got home. It was sitting there for a couple days by the time I went to do the dishes. Also they'd regularly invite friends over, cook them dinner, and then leave the dishes for me to do the next day.
God I'm glad I'm out of that hellhole.
Gratitude makes you live longer, feel better, and it's free.
If you want to open a padlock and don't have the key, you can almost certainly break it open with 2 big wrenches.
I only had 1 opportunity to try that yet, when removing a 20 year old lock some stupid kid left on my stuff and then forgot where I put the key, but man did it feel empowering.
You can practice this trick at any romantic bridge. Do you really think whoever etched their initials on the lock is still together and would notice? PleaseWhen cutting onions, set the cutting board on the stove and turn on the extractor fan. No more tears!
I worked at a factory that produced food with onion as one of the main ingredients. The best trick was to breathe with the mouth. Breathing with my nose would always make my eyes cry.
Is it weird I kind of like the tears?
Chill the onion before cutting will helps too, either put it in the fridge or put it in a tub of ice water.
So does rinsing the onion slices. I slice a ring off, rinse the ring, & then chop.
Got some domed glass pot lids but the one you need broke? Simply invert the handle on the next size up and you get a universal lid that fits any pan! Condensation pools in the middle instead of dripping over the sides.
When given the option, read the instructions, and save for future reference. (A URL / bookmark doesn't count as saving unless you control the hostname (including DNS).)
Don't Buy Stuff
I always read these and go "fuck yeah I could stand to feel like a new bloke as well" and then I remember I don't drink and thus can't quit it either. Fuck the baseline.
You wanna try some crack? You could sprinkle a little on your cereal & then work really hard to kick the habit.
Improve the cold tolerance and immunity by going to sauna during cold days.
Embrace the cold and don't overheat yourself by wearing too many layers.
When go cycling or running don't wear to many clothes, so you won't overheat yourself. You should feel slight cold and the exercise will heat you.
People usually catch flu due to low immunity or overheating and switching between environments of high temperature difference.
I think that flu thing is an old wives tale. You usually get flu because you breathed it in. The association with cold is because during cold weather people spend more time in poorly ventilated areas.
Getting a Shavette. The prospect of it being sharper than a straight razor makes you think that you will slice your face off, but in my experience at worst I had a nick or 2. The blades are dirt cheap and perform better than multi bladed razors.
A nice bonus is you have no plastic waste.
safety razor is the way to go imo. Same benefits of a shavette but easier to use and harder to cut yourself
Icegel pouch and Samsung cellphone=fast charging
Explain
Many phones overheat while fast charging - this forces the circutry to reduce the current in order to prevent battery damage
If you cool your phone down, it can sustain high current and charges much faster
Fast charging is all about heat management so keeping it cool will allow it to charge faster.
Nobody who bike commutes is fat.
I'm fat and I bike to work.
Not really a life hack but: folding bicycles are so, so convenient for everyday use (fits in every elevator, fits under your desk at work, fits in public transportation even when it's crowded, etc)
I really don't know how they are not a lot more common; you only need a mountain bike if you actually ride on mountain trails often enough. Even non-folding city bicycles are way more comfortable for everyday usage (higher handlebar position and cushiony saddle <3)