Asklemmy

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.

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.

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."

How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

1. 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.

2. Electric screwdriver - it doesn't matter how much DIY you do or how rarely you make IKEA furniture, you still need an electric screwdriver.

3. 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:

https://www.drlauriesantos.com/happiness-lab-podcast

https://www.schwab.com/learn/choiceology

https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/

https://hiddenbrain.org/

4. "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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Buying lots of identical pairs of socks massively reduces the amount of time you need to find matching pairs after drying them.

You can rename files in Windows using the F2 key. This works for a lot of Microsoft products including editing a cell without overwriting it in Excel.

Using "≈" and "≠" sign on internet text.
These are literally long press options on the "=" key.

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.

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.

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.

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.