Life hacks have been the Pinterest mood board of the year ever since all we could do for 2020 was sit at home and figure out ways to make our lives a little easier.
Urban Dictionary tells us that a “Life Hack” is:
“A tool or technique that makes some aspect of one’s life easier or more efficient.”
Mommy blogs love them too.
Who said taking the easy way out had to be a bad thing anyway?
Redditor synthesezia asked:
“Reddit, what are your best lifehacks?”
Closet Hacks.
“Putting my clothes in my closet with the hangers reversed once a year. As I pull clothes out, I reverse the hanger. Every year I give away any clothes that I never took out.” – elblanco
“I do something similar. I put all the clothes I hang up each week on the left side of the closet, with each week sliding everything right to make room. Eventually the stuff I don’t wear makes its way to the right. That’s the stuff I ditch.” – keebler980
“Related to this, the most recent time I moved, I only took things out of boxes on an as-needed basis. After 6 months, anything that was still in a box got either thrown away or given to Goodwill.” – crazyeight
For those of us with a bad memory.
“When you need to remember to bring something with you, put your car keys on it the night before…” – drewlb
“What if it’s your car keys you need to remember… cries.” – Redditor
“I usually put things I need to remember on top of or in my shoes.” – nunobo
“Try a basket by the door, in which you always put your keys/wallet/what have you as soon as you walk in. This is what I do. I never lose my keys (I still do lock myself out of my car though. Usually on or right before dates).” – Redditor
Academia life hacks.
“Here is a lifehack for all of the students out there. If you are charged with writing a lengthy research paper, find one very solid source that directly pertains to your thesis, and then you can use that source’s bibliography to back into locating new sources.” – Fonix79
“One of my professors says that it’s perfectly acceptable and done all the time in academia. Furthermore, you’re under no obligation to credit the source you used to find the bibliography unless you use something directly in that article.”
“Last, but not least, they have already written out the bibliography entry for you!” – Anonymous999
“For anyone just starting university, or grad school, in a program where you will write many papers: put EVERYTHING you ever read or remotely think will be useful into a bibliography database like Endnote (for Word users) or BibTeX.”
“You can pdf almost everything to a massive folder and link to it.”
“Then, not only is the info at your finger tips for however long you’re in school, but the software writes the bibliography for you.”
“NO idea why schools aren’t teaching this alongside general advice on writing all sorts of term papers…” – dolichoblond
Avoid debt as much as possible.
“Never owe money on a car and never carry a Credit Card balance. It makes my life way easier and it is my way of saying F*ck You to the debt encouraging system we live in.” – cheddarben
“It’s amazing (and very, very sad) when you realize how few people actually do this.” – vtdweller
“I can’t agree enough with the credit card thing.”
“About 5 years out of college I had roughly 15k of credit card debt. I’d pay double the minimum and slowly work them down, only to run them up again when I wanted/needed something.”
“It took me three years, but I finally got it all paid off and haven’t run up anything higher than a thousand or so since then.”
“The trick is to consolidate. Put all your bills on one card.”
“Make sure to call around and get the best possible balance transfer rate for the longest. (I lucked out at something like 1% until it was paid off).”
“Then, take all the money you were paying on all the separate cards, plus a little extra, and hit it hard.”
“(For the geeky among you, imagine it as using a super-powerful attack month after month to reduce the health bar of your debt.)”
“It took about $500 a month, which made things tight, but doable.”
“The best part was that once the debt is paid, you’ve gotten accustomed to living in that -$500 a month fashion, and find yourself with an extra $500 in your pocket (or savings) each month.”
“So when you do want/need to spend, you’ve got the cash on hand.” – fffuuuu-na-mana
Get paid to use the toilet.
“Poop at work. You’ll be using less of your own tp and more of your company’s time.”
“I started going into the john to play games on my cell phone for 5-10 minutes just to take a break; while I was in there I’d pinch one out.”
“After a few weeks I realized that I hadn’t replaced my own tp at my apartment in a while.” – Redditor
“And you get paid for that sh*t.” – Redditor
“I prefer to call it ‘professional defecation.’” – De_Draad
“I did the math on this, I make about 30 dollars annually just for sh*tting.” – sambowilkins
Have an extra bag in your car.
“Back when I was 18-26, I always had one full bag packed in my car. It generally had clean underwear, a t-shirt or two, jeans, shorts, flops, and toothbrush/deodorant.”
“I can’t tell you how many times I’d just meet up with some friends and next thing you know it was 2AM and I needed a place to sleep. Having everything with me was awesome.” – ChrisF79
“‘What you invited Chris? Dude that guy sits around after everyone else has left and then suddenly is surprised that its 2am.”
“But no worries, he has a freeloader bag packed in the car. Hope you have lots of food in the fridge. You’ll need it.’”
“Just kidding.” – fdat
“Slightly different structure to mine, but I do something similar. Under the back seat of each of my trucks I have a roll of clothes.”
“T-shirt, pair of jeans, socks, and undies. The difference is, instead of a bag, I have it tightly wrapped up in stretch wrap.”
“It’s like kitchen saran wrap but we use it in receiving to wrap bundles / pallets. The benefits are it keeps it super compact and effectively watertight.”
“The times I’ve had to crack one open often have been because my current clothes got either soaked or dirty working, so nice and dry was a huge benefit.” – vetteboy
Meal prep is the way to go.
“Make lunch for work the night before.”
“1. Groceries are way cheaper than eating out every day – f*ck anyone who thinks you’re lame because you don’t have a Timmyho bagel or BK for lunch everyday. I’m saving 4-5$ per meal.”
“2. Not making lunch the morning makes the morning that much smoother.” – flatlander30
“I take the ‘make lunch for work the night before’ one step further:”
“Make the guts of your sandwiches for the whole week on Sunday. Sandwich your meat, mayo, mustard in between two slices of cheese, pop each one in a ziplock.”
“On your way out the door in the morning, toss in two slices of bread and you’re good to go.” – gertrude104
Eat before shopping.
“Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.” – Redditor
“Or the reverse – always go when you’re hungry. I find I buy more grocery stuff, so my kitchen is more full, causing me to eat out less often. Larger initial investment, but overall investment is smaller.” – clunkclunk
“Yeah, but you buy sh*t that you would NEVER buy otherwise. It’s like picking up people when you’re drunk and horny….your inhibitions and judgement flies out the window and everything looks good.”
“Going shopping hungry is the reason that I’ve had a can of ‘gravy and meatballs’ in my pantry for two years.” – weirdboobs
Fear might be a good motivator.
“If there’s something big I want to get done, I tell all my friends I’m going to do it. The fear of looking like an a** helps keep me motivated.” – munificent
“That is how I quit smoking. In addition to telling all my friends and family, I put on my whiteboard at the office the number of days I went without a cigarette in addition to the last time I had one.”
“Last Cigarette: October 17th 2008 6:30 AM Time Since Then: <some value>”
“Every time I increased the number, I felt a small victory. At some point changing the value everyday just became a habit and somewhat trivial.”
“At 100 days or so, I started putting weeks instead of days.”
“Not only did it keep me accountable, people would occasionally see it while in my office and tell me ‘good job!’”
“While I knew they had no idea how incredibly hard it was to quit, knowing that people recognized my effort fueled me even further.”
“At some point, I finally stopped remember to change the number every Friday (70+ weeks).”
“Currently, I do not know how long it has been since I have had a cigarette, but I can tell you the exact time I had my last one.” – dulper
Getting out of bed.
“In the morning I practically jump right out of bed, go and wash my face with cold water. Then I jump back into bed and listen to music while I’m waking up.”
“I’ve found this a lot easier than just lying there waiting to wake up naturally. I can just hop out of bed right away, knowing that I’ll be back in just a minute, and then the water wakes me right up.”
“Before I used to do this I’d just lay there like a sloth, moaning in my head about how tired I am etc… I’ve found this trick to be a good happy-medium.” – cocasyn
“I set morning alarms ten minutes apart. When the first one goes off, I grab a piece of caffeine gum that I keep on my nightstand, chew it for about fifteen seconds and get rid of it.”
“Fall back asleep. When the second one goes off, getting out of bed is not only easy, but exciting.” – Redditor
“Definitely agree with this. Be sure to have a good pump up song on the ready to.”
“Something that either makes you smile or one you would have on at the gym. And I love a good face rinse, just feels…right.” – SloppyJoMo
“I used to have my computer set up to start playing a specific iTunes playlist on the stereo at a certain time. The playlist was exactly as long as I had in the morning and went from chill songs to more energetic.”
“Throughout my morning routine, I could always tell how I was doing on time by the currently playing song.” – munificent
We don’t always do things the easy way.
In a time where the little things can seem extra difficult given everything that’s been going on, we might as well take some advice from stranger and make our lives a little more pleasant.