There’s an old adage: “A day spent without learning something new is a day wasted.” I was feeling about as old as that adage recently, but it was a small price to pay to learn something new from my employees. I learned about life hacks. Bear with me…the concept is actually much cooler than the scary-sounding term. No axes or serial killers involved, I swear! Life hacks are more along the lines of “sharpening your saw”.
Life hacking refers to tips, shortcuts, and tricks that lead to productivity boosts. In other words, any clever, non-obvious way to solve an everyday problem and make our lives a bit easier is a life hack. The term was first used by computer experts looking to accelerate their work flow in other areas of their lives beyond computer programming.
Do you remember Heloise and her helpful hints? Turns out, she was a life hacker. Here some examples of ingenious life hacks:
- Use your phone to snap a picture of the friend holding the DVD, CD, book, or tool they borrow from you. That way you’ll remember who you lent your stuff to when you go looking for it.
- Put your straw through the tab in a can of soda pop to stop it from rising out of your drink.
- Rub a walnut on damaged wooden furniture to cover dings and nicks.
- Use a sunglasses case to store cords and cables in your bag or briefcase
- Use a cupcake liner or a disposable plate to catch popsicle drips and keep your hands clean
- Wrap headphones inside an old tape dispenser for tangle-free storage
There are entire websites like lifehacker.com and lifehack.org devoted to sharing these low-budget tips and tricks that will prolong and preserve your products, increase your productivity, or simply teach you something new.
I have been sharing his own office-related version of life hacks in a weekly email called Tuesday Tips. In these short emails, I share things like the 7 Top Online Productivity Tools to Simplify Your Life and Easy Ideas for Email Etiquette.
Want to learn how to save 64 hours a year? Or better yet, $12,000 per year in productivity costs, I will tell you! If you’d like to get my email every Tuesday, just contact me to subscribe. Meanwhile, enjoy these quotes about “sharpening your saw”, as Stephen Covey would say:
“Never stop learning. If you learn one new thing every day, you will overcome 99% over your competition.”~Joe Carlozo
“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” ~Abraham Lincoln
“I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.” ~Eartha Kitt
“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.” ~Vernon Howard
“He who stops being better, stops being good.” ~Oliver Cromwell
Hack away at life this weekend,
~Bob
