Smart Living 101: Easy Life Hacks Everyone Should Have in Their Arsenal

Pillow Glamour

Sometimes changing your pillow case daily can help with acne. I use a clean t-shirt over my pillow to accomplish the same effect.

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The Last Drop Magic

If you’re making coffee in an automatic drip coffee maker, especially a cheap one, leaving a little bit of water in the carafe (about an ounce or so) will significantly improve the flavor.

It prevents the first bit of brewed coffee from becoming scorched from the hot plate and flavoring the entire pot.

Flex Appeal

Do a light stretch every morning.

Nothing fancy, just spine, shoulder, neck, and leg stretches should be fine. Breathe deeply while you do it to wake yourself up.

Especially for people with a sedentary lifestyle or who work in office jobs, this is huge. Don’t lose track of your body’s flexibility and strength, feel it stretch every morning, and you will spend the rest of your day (and hopefully your life) with a real ease of movement, you’ll feel lighter and stronger.

Also: VISUAL CUES to remind you to fix your posture and sit with an elongated (technically you shouldn’t say straight) spine. Post it notes everywhere, notice other people’s posture and that’ll make you fix yours.

Trust me, the smallest movements like lifting boxes or going upstairs, picking things up from the floor, etc – should never feel difficult. Stretching in the morning helps your body to be ready to perform those tiny day-to-day activities EFFICIENTLY, without wasting energy.

Banking on Wisdom

Seriously? Pay your bills when they arrive, not when they’re due.

Banks, credit card companies, mortgage lenders, utility services, etc. absolutely love, love, love it when people wait until the last minute to pay their bills. When I signed up with my bank, I read the agreement and got the “personal banker” to concede that yes…they made a lot of money off late fees. They’re not alone.

The thing is, paying your bills when they arrive doesn’t cost you anything extra. If you can get into the habit, you’ll always be ahead of the curve, and if something comes up that necessitates you holding off on a bill, you’ve got a couple of weeks to figure it out.

It also relieves a considerable amount of stress. It’s a bit like homework. Don’t put it off until the last minute. Get the assignment done when the teacher gives it to you.

Liquid Wake-Up Call

As soon as you wake up, drink two pints of water (about 1 liter). It will wake you up like caffeine and get you pooping in about 30-45 minutes, like clockwork.

Unleash the Manners

Train your dog. When I was a kid my parents’ definition of ‘trained’ was pooping outside, a very low bar to meet. So as I got older turns out you can teach them to not jump up, charge through the door, pull on the leash, actually come when called, leave the room on command, get off the couch, and even keep them off the couch when you aren’t there, and hold still when you clip nails. A year or two worth of consistent training with positive reinforcement will give you a lifetime of stress-free pet ownership.

Brushing Bootcamp

Brush your teeth more thoroughly before bed after you are done eating and drinking for the day.

Morning brushing is important too, but more so for fresh breath; while evening cleaning will prevent bacteria from breeding and damaging your teeth and gums.

Honey’s Time Capsule

Honey does not go bad, if it has gone solid it has just crystallized and can become liquid again with just a little heat.

Life’s Laundry

I say this with so much respect, and I keep my house very clean overall— but it is really hard to do this, and really easy to beat yourself up for not doing it!

It makes perfect sense- spend 20 minutes cleaning, each day, after yourself, right? Then DUH! Your house will always be clean/presentable. Alas, there are times when it seems easier to summit Everest than to deal with the laundry you’ve been putting off.

So to this, I say the mental-health life hack is to cut yourself some slack if you don’t “clean a little bit every day” and instead appreciate doing what you can.

Slice of Life

Not necessarily a “hack” per se, but learn some basic knife skills, the amount of time you will save chopping vegetables a few times a week (minimum) for the rest of your life far outweighs the amount of time it takes to learn, plus you can use the extra time to keep the kitchen clean and that makes everything less stressful while you’re cooking and makes the cleanup faster as well.

OneWholePirate

Customer Therapy

From working in technical support for longer than I dare think about, most angry customers just want to be heard. Let them have their rant, do active listening, and make notes about what they’re saying. They will eventually run out of steam. Then, read back everything they talked about and go through it step by step. Works almost every time, and often they are very thankful by the end of the call.

Stepping into Elegance

If you want a comfortable pair of high heels, invest in a pair of dance heels.

Lots of beautiful designs and colors, designed to be flexible and comfortable. Worth every penny.

Just make sure they’re not felt-soled if you plan on wearing them outdoors. A good quality pair from a company like Repetto is worth getting rubber-soled if they aren’t already.

Your feet will thank you.

My mother has had permanent foot deformation from wearing heels daily since 1977 and my discovery of wearing dance heels was born out of my desire to look elegant but avoid pain and disfigurement!

Rarefindofthemind

Silent Success

Never gossip no matter how much you dislike a person. It can be really helpful particularly at work when that person you dislike and you consider to be dumber to actually save yourself in certain situation rather than have him/her as your rival.

I keep receiving gossip from various colleagues about others and always pretend to never know anything while I know lots of details and I agree with many of these sometimes.

This is really helpful in your career being neutral and having people not being against you.

Rise and Really Shine

If you wake up by the alarm, get up when it goes off. Don’t hit snooze. I know this goes against everything your body wants, but personally, it lets me get up, get centered, and prepare for my day. Snoozing is great, don’t get me wrong, but you set that alarm for a reason and not snoozing is following through with your commitment. It translates to following through on so many other things throughout the day. No alarms on your days off (and I hope you get some, if not, I’m sorry and I hope things get better for you soon.)

Mesh Magic

Sick of losing socks in the laundry? Wash them in one of those mesh garment bags. I never lose them and it’s so much easier to put them away when you’re only sorting through them out of the bag than across the whole pile of shirts and whatever else out of the dryer.

Avoidance Tango

When walking head-on towards somebody, to avoid the are we going to crash into each other dance, don’t look at them to see where they are going, fix your eyes over one of their shoulders, and don’t waiver – they will then move in the other direction.

Eclipse Your Eyestrain

If you work at a PC all day, turn the night light on constantly (I have it set to turn on at 4 am and off at 3 am.

Makes a huge difference in eye strain. After you get used to it other screens feel like looking at the sun.

I set up one of my colleague’s PCs the same and a week later she told me she had stopped getting headaches every day at 1 pm, which she had even been going to the opticians for.

Ramen Remix

After making ramen that is presumably boiling hot, add frozen peas to cool it down and increase your veg count for the day.

This is also the perfect way to cook frozen peas (quickly so as to not leech out all the sugars).

Other frozen veg can be added as well/instead of but some of them actually need cooking for a number of minutes which just won’t be done in the bowl of ramen.

Fluid Frequencies

If you’re having trouble finding your car in a parking lot, put the key fob to your chin to extend its range. Water is a great conductor, and your head is full of it. Definitely saved me after multiple dodgers games lol.

Flipside Decisions

If you have trouble choosing, flip a coin. While you’re waiting to get the result, your mind automatically starts to wish for what it wants. Then you can choose easily.

Hanger Management

Edit out clothes you don’t wear.

After you wear something turn the hanger the other way in the closet. At the end of a season, you can identify things you didn’t wear and decide whether you still need them.

To do this with clothes in drawers, fold them in thirds instead of half so you can stand them up and still close the drawer. Put a piece of cardboard or folded bandana on the right end of the drawer. Store freshly folded clothes on the right side of the cardboard and slide everything to the left. Clothing you didn’t wear winds up on the left side of the cardboard.

Takes no extra time, just the willingness and desire to pare down and make space for stuff you really want.

Pause, Ponder, Respond

Choose your reaction before your emotions can.

I was always jealous of people who naturally had a great response to problems (like “I forgot something at home. Oh well, it happens to everyone. I’m sure they’ll understand why I’m late.”). I began really noticing how much easier that must make life, so I started trying to imagine the “right” reaction to situations.

If you make yourself pause to think of a good reaction, you can kind of choose it like “Yeah, that would be a good one” and then you don’t give your stupid brain an opportunity to throw out a negative reaction.

(Someone made me remember something I think is important to add, so I’m pasting it here so it won’t get lost)

I learned to do it despite it seeming impossible. The trick for me was to recognize that I was enabling and feeding my own emotional responses, like “My car won’t start, I should be upset! Why wouldn’t I be?! This will cost me money!” I was choosing to be upset because I was “supposed” to be, or I was entitled to be upset. But I didn’t really want to be.

Pickle Resurrection

When you are done eating pickles and still have pickles brine left in the jar, don’t spill it out. Cut up a red onion into rings and throw them into the jar. Refrigerate and a couple of days later you have pickled onion rings. Works best with bread and butter-type brine IMO, but you do you.

The Fabric of Defense

If mosquitoes are a problem where you live, and you run out of bug spray, just rub a dryer sheet over your bare skin. It sounds weird, but it absolutely repels them.

Pour Decisions

If you spin a water bottle while pouring water out the water drains quicker (because making a vortex means the air isn’t stopping the water from exiting thus making it go a bit quicker). Depending on how often you empty water bottles and how big they are you can save SECONDS of your life on this mundane task(!).

Heat Pad Magic

Right before your baby’s bath, put a small heating pad on low heat under their blanket in the crib. When you go to change them, turn it off but make sure none of the heat gets out. Then when it’s time to put them down, they won’t cry being put in a cold crib. Most people don’t realize that they are crying because of the temperature change. Yeah, yeah don’t come at me…ya gotta do it safe but all you new parents out there, you just got a game changer right there. Learned it from a nurse and I’m a nurse. Good stuff.

Mouthful of Relief

If you ever get painful blisters inside your mouth, put some aspirin on it. Run an aspirin tablet under water until it’s sort of mushy and put it right on the sore. Leave it there for 5 minutes minimum. Applying the aspirin does not hurt at all and it provides relief for 4-6 hours. Best of all, the blister will heal faster.

Plate Protocol

Not simple because it needs habit-building:

When you use plates, glasses, etc, always directly put them in the dishwasher rather than leaving them in the sink or on the counter. When the dishwasher is full, simply run it. After the cycle ends, empty the dishwasher.

No additional effort in total. But you will always have a tidy counter in the kitchen.

Soleful Solutions

I used to travel a ton. My two travel hacks are; bring a fresh pair of socks in your carry-on and bring an orange.

The fresh socks; after a long day of meetings or tourism when you get on a plane your socks will be ripe. Yet nothing feels better than fresh socks and taking your shoes off. I take them off my seat and quickly stuff the offending socks on a plastic baggie from headphones or something similar and put them deep in my bag.

Also, I have sat next to stinky people too many times to count. Bad breath AND BO. If you crack open an orange, it will deodorize or block their scent. Even the people nearby will thank you.

One additional hack; if you have a bad sore throat, chew on an uncoated aspirin. For a minute, it tastes awful. But the chewed aspirin will sit on the back of your throat and relieve the pain incredibly well for an hour or more.

Stay Afloat, Stay Alive

If you ever fall off a ship/ferry at sea and are lucky enough to be spotted – don’t try to swim your way to safety. The more you try to swim, the lesser the chances of survival. Just try to keep afloat and conserve energy (and body heat) while the rescue team does what they’re supposed to. Unless you are in hypothermic waters, the best bet always is to stay afloat without trying to swim somewhere. This information about falling overboard, hypothermia and conditions, survival at sea, etc is based on my own experience of 12 years sailing on merchant ships

Flip It and Whip It

Turn Natural Peanut Butter, the ones where the oil seperates and you have to mix it, upside down for a few hours. It will bring the oil to the top and make it a lot easier to mix! Then, after you mix it, put it in the fridge and the cold will solidify the oil so you don’t have to mix it again.

To a few points, natural peanut butter doesn’t solidify to a point that it’s hard to spread when cold so that’s not something you have to worry about when storing it in the fridge.

Cold Sore Vanishing Act

Fingernail polish remover on cold sores.

I know, I know. Sounds crazy, right?

I’ve gotten cold sores since I was a child. In middle school, I had a teacher very excitedly tell me to go home and ask my mom if she had any fingernail polish remover and to try it. She SWORE on the stuff.

So, I went home and tried and it’s actually INCREDIBLE.

A chemical in it dries up any liquids crazy fast. I used to try to puncture them with a needle to drain the fluid, and it made me realize that the remover only burns when it’s an open sore. If you leave the sore in one piece, it doesn’t burn at all.

Y’all. It makes them go away crazy fast. All of the medications for cold sores say that if you can get their products on the sores as soon as you can feel it, it’ll go away. I’ve never had any luck with that, but fingernail polish ACTUALLY does just that!

When it’s at the stage where it’s really bulbous and filled with liquid, that’s the best time to use it. Put some on a cotton ball and you’ll see a big difference in just a few hours. I’ve even had entire sores just… Vanish in about 4 hours after using it, granted they were smaller ones.

I know it sounds crazy, but try it a few times and you’ll never buy actual cold sore medication again.

Breakfast on Ice

When you have cold cereal, put the bowl and a glass of milk in the freezer for about 10 minutes beforehand. It will be the best cereal you’ve ever had.

The milk stays cold, and it keeps the cereal from becoming soggy so quickly.

(You can also just perpetually keep an empty bowl in the freezer, which works for cereal or ice cream)

Toasty Treats

Buy a pack of bagels. Slice them all into halves (the way you usually do before you chuck them in the toaster). Put them back into the pack/plastic bag/whatever and into the freezer. Result = pre-sliced bagel you were going to toast anyway + no chance of mold and waste.

Buzz Off Discomfort

As someone who used to suffer from alternating bouts of diarrhea and constipation in the morning:

Stir a teaspoon of good quality honey (not the cheap supermarket ones with added sugar, this is very important) into a glass of water at room temperature. Drink this every morning the first thing you do after waking up.

After this, avoid eating or drinking anything for at least 10 minutes. Let the enzymes in the honey-do their thing in your gut, and it will be fixed in no time. Oh and keep yourself well-hydrated for the rest of the day.

Mind Over Hiccup

Hiccups are entirely mental after the first few hiccups. The actual twitch in your diaphragm only lasts a short while, but human brains are kinda dumb, so yours just makes you keep going. All hiccup cures work by distracting your stupid brain.

The takeaway here is that you can actually just decide to stop hiccupping. The trick is knowing that you can do that. I’ve done it a few times. After I did it two or three times, I just stopped getting hiccups. Been something like a year, so it might be a coincidence, but it might not be.

Eggspert Advice

To reduce the possibility of getting eggshells in your food, don’t break it on the edge of a pan. Just drop it 2 or 3 inches onto the counter. The internal membrane holds onto the pieces much better, and you can split them open with your thumbs easily and get much fewer eggshell pieces in your food.

Kiwi Concoction

Putting kiwi on a steak.

Kiwi juice has enzymes that break down meats, tenderizing the steak. Pineapple does the same thing but has a much stronger flavor. So put a bit of kiwi mush on your steak about 30 minutes prior to cooking it and it will be amazingly tender without a strange flavor added.

culb77

Diaper Defender

One of my favorites is to bring a couple of new disposable diapers to the beach (lake, river, etc.) If you decide to leave your towel to hit the water, you can wrap your cell phone, car keys, and wallet up in a diaper, then fasten it up and I promise you NO ONE will mess with your stuff! You’re welcome! Hee!

4steph

Sole Salvation

Rub a bit of Vaseline (not moisturizer) into the bottoms of your feet after showering or bathing and towel-drying. Not too much – just enough for a light coating that you rub in as much as possible. If you do it every single time after you shower (or bathe), your feet will be as soft as a baby’s bottom. Good for males and females.

Iconoclast123

Pigeon Be Gone

Had a pigeon problem on my balcony. I live in front of a church, so a lot of them gather there. At night and early in the morning, they would come to my balcony, leaving poop and feathers all around and biting my plants.

One day I saw a plastic raven at a store, that supposedly scares them away. It was expensive and I didn’t have much money, so I grabbed a bunch of black plastic bags and some wire, made a fake raven, and attached it to the railing.

It’s been like seven months and I haven’t seen a single pigeon on the balcony since.

Reverse Burgerology

When eating a big cheeseburger, if you have to put it down, simply reverse it and put the top down as the bottom. That bottom bun is probably greasy and on the verge of disintegrating, the top was just placed there.

Ventilation Vacation

When driving for long periods. Turn off recirculating air. One of the reasons you get tired in the car is not from lack of sleep but from too much CO2 in the car. Have you ever been so tired driving home and when you get home you’re no longer tired? It’s because of the lack of oxygen in the car. Especially if you have passengers in the car.

Decibel Detective

To confirm which circuit breaker is associated with an outlet, plug in an old radio and turn the volume up before you flip the circuit breaker.

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Size Matters

I was a mover, and the one lesson way above all else that I learned was this:

Buy uniform boxes of 2-3 different sizes (don’t just save a bunch of Amazon boxes), maybe small, medium, and XL, and put EVERYTHING into boxes.

Here is how you label those boxes 1. The room it is supposed to go in at your new apartment or house 2. Fragile, heavy, or important (for things you want to open right away). That’s it. Not what the items are, that doesn’t matter at all when they’re being moved.

Every stray lamp or swifter sweeper or picture frame or whatever non-furniture item that you own that isn’t put into a box will slow down your move and will take up far more space in the truck because you’ll have to create strange special spots for them.

Only make necessary exceptions like bikes, large workout equipment, lawn equipment, etc., but I assure you this strategy can shave hours off of your move.

A bonus tip is to start with every single one of those boxes and stack them all the way to the ceiling as the first thing loaded in your truck. Then, put mattresses and box springs against them to hold the wall in place, and then sofas press supportive weight against your mattress box wall. Happy moving!

Slice and Dice

When you’re cooking and the recipe calls for onions and garlic, don’t put the garlic into the pan until the onion is nearly translucent. Garlic cooks way faster than onions do, if you throw them in at the same time it won’t taste as good/the garlic will burn. It literally takes 30 seconds for minced garlic to cook.

Also, if you’re a home cook… sharpen your knives often.

Thought of a few more tips:

• love chives and parsley in your eggs/omelets/anything else, but hate the hassle of cutting them/using the herbs before it turns? Get dried chives and dried parsley instead, it rehydrates quickly in sauces/eggs and tastes the same (it’s also way cheaper). This tip can be applied to a lot of herbs. While fresher is always better, dried is often still delicious while still being on a student budget.

• add a bit of vinegar to your beans if you’re making anything beany, a lot of home cooks think that vinegar is gross (and it is by itself) but a dash of vinegar can really make beans, sauces, and marinades pop!

Razwog

Pause for Paws

If you have a spare minute or are just playing video games or on a computer at home, take a few minutes to just pet your dog/ cat and really appreciate them. A phrase I heard somewhere just really stuck with me: Pets are only a part of your life but you are your pet’s entire life.

Groomed to Bloom

If you are not conventionally attractive, get good at grooming. Being clean, smelling good, and being well groomed can easily take you from a 1 to a 5. The most unattractive people out there are the ones who don’t wash, smell funky, and wear ill-fitting clothes. I’ve never met someone I couldn’t make twice as attractive just by having them wash, style their hair, maybe add a dash of makeup, and put on more flattering clothes. I’m not a stylist, nor anything like it, but I do enjoy helping people brush up if they ask me. I remember I had a friend in university who wasn’t conventionally pretty and was going to her sister’s wedding. All I did was trim her hair a bit, condition and style it, put on a tiny bit of concealer and eyeliner, and pick her out a dress and she looked FANTASTIC.

And yes, I’m often mistaken for the “gay best friend” who has a talent for making people look good when I talk about this stuff online. I am 100% straight and completely unqualified in styling lol I just enjoy it.

Lint Be Gone

If you’re wearing black clothes with lint/fur on them but don’t have a lint roller handy, just dampen your hands and run them down the clothes. The worst of it will gather in an easily grabable ball and then you can just wash your hands to get what’s on them off.

After living with 5 furry animals, this has saved me a few times.

Mortgage Magic

Some banks, credit unions, or financial planning institutions offer programs that help you get down payments together for a house. The one I used had me take some classes about budgeting then open a shared account with them, then you deposit up to a certain amount every month and they matched it. When it’s over they cut you a check that has to be spent on a mortgage down payment within a certain time frame (3 months in my case). I closed on my first house this way at 25 years old with no college degree and no assistance from family, and my monthly payments are still roughly $400 less than the rent for my last apartment.

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Mindful Navigation

Life is about flow; a pushing and pulling juxtaposition. It can be someone with a negative attitude vs a positive outlook. Or it can be the flow of the rivers and oceans. Find the people who want to help keep your cup overflowing and do the same for them.

If your past is pulling you back in time, that’s your depression working overtime. If your mind is constantly pushing you into the future, that’s your anxiety. When your mind is focused and you’re centered, then you’re present and in the moment.

For me, this simple philosophy has brought me back from the brink of suicide, alcoholism, and crippling depression. It helped me find my purpose in life and made me truly happy.

One thing I would add is that happiness is not a constant state of mind. It comes and goes like the tide, but when you find that you are experiencing more appreciation for your life, that’s happiness putting its hand on your shoulder.

If I get depressed or angry, I find time to isolate myself from everything and meditate for about 10-15 minutes. In my mind, I just started trying to count the blessings in my life that I am thankful for and would miss if they were taken away. Taking an emotional inventory, helps me recenter myself and focus on what’s really important.

rugger403

Dampless Descent

When you’re done showering, turn off the water, stand in the shower, and dry yourself from head to knee. Lift your leg as you pat down to your ankle. Place your wet foot back down and dry your other leg as well. Then pick your favorite foot, lift it into the air, and pat it dry. Step out of the shower and dry your last wet foot. There is now zero water outside the tub. I did this as a child and had to shower first cause my siblings soaked the floor stepping out then drying off. It’s insane.

Forearm Icy Magic

If you’re outside in extreme heat and feeling faint, or like you’re about to pass out: take cold water or pieces of ice and rub it on your forearms. You will feel the effects immediately. Your head will no longer be dizzy and your internal core temperature will stabilize.

This is due to the large amounts of blood veins in your forearms just under the skin’s surface.

Anti-Mess Muffins

The cupcake hack.

You know how every time you eat a cupcake you get icing all over your upper lip and nose? Never again.

Pull the bottom half of the cake portion off. Put it on top of the icing, essentially creating a cupcake sandwich. Eat that with peace of mind that you won’t look like a toddler when you’re through.

No Excuses, Just Results

If you’re friendly with people, they’ll usually work with you on almost any issue you might be having. Whether it’s dealing with a ticket, returning something to a store, getting a refund, or whatever — just be exceedingly nice, and usually people are happy to help you.

In the case of getting a ticket — just don’t try to make excuses. If you get caught speeding, like I did a few months ago, I just say “I’m sorry sir, I really don’t have any excuse. I just had some personal stuff on my mind, and wasn’t really paying attention.”

I think he respected that I totally owned up to it, that I wasn’t “trying to weasel out of getting a ticket”, and just told me to pay attention and pull over if that’s a problem.

Similar issue, the same thing about my tags expiring, he asked me if I knew my stuff was expired, and I just said “Sorry sir, that’s on me; time has just gotten away from me”. He still wrote me a ticket but told me if I showed up on the court date with the tags renewed, he’d waive the ticket. It took a couple of hours, but saved me about $300, so worthwhile.

Pills with Benefits

Take multivitamins every day if you can remember. Our diets are not always good for us and your body needs these essentials. I was surprised at even just some small benefits of taking vitamins, like having healthier hair, teeth, and nails and no longer experiencing painful leg and foot cramps when I wake up in the a.m.

Blink Before You Think

Use your turn signal/blinker/indicator at least 3 seconds before turning/merging so the person behind you knows your intent and isn’t surprised when you turn/merge. Using it as you are turning/merging doesn’t give the other person enough time to react.

But do remember to turn it off after your merge because they don’t auto-turn off on a merge.

Tape and Zip

When taping something where you plan to remove the tape later; fold over one end of the tape on itself to make a “pull tab” which will make it easy to pull the tape off in one piece, instead of picking at the edge with your fingernail and tearing it to multiple pieces.

Hang It Up

When you are hanging your clothes, keep one hanger open and use it to differentiate between clothes that you have worn this year and those that you haven’t. When you wash clothes and hang them up, you put them in front of the open hanger to show what you’ve already worn. When you get to the end of the year, whatever clothes you have left on the not worn side, you can donate to clear room for the clothes you actually wear.

Babysit in Style

For people with kids, those who babysit or have kids over on a regular basis, or anyone who just likes to sit on the floor in general – I highly recommend getting a dog bed. They’re usually more durable and easier to clean than what you’d get with similar products for kids/adults. You can get dog beds with nice, dense cushioning, or you can find beds that have memory foam. They can be waterproof, stain-resistant, and all of that. Also, they’re usually cheaper than what you’d have to pay for a human product that has those properties, and they’re built to last longer.

Seriously. You can use it as a changing pad to lay your baby on when you’re changing their diaper. They can be used for cushioning in a playpen once the toddler is old enough to roll around and sit on surfaces like that. You can use it as a cushion to sit on if you set up a reading nook for kids.

We have a massive canvas dog bed we got on sale for about $30 when our son was maybe 6 months old. I’ve used it as a cushion to sit or lay on during the nights when I’ve had to hang out in my kid’s room while trying to get him to fall asleep (and I’ve fallen asleep on it dozens of times). We’ve used it as a big comfy pillow when we have our movie nights. My wife uses it to sit on when she sits on the floor by the coffee table. We’ve used it as a cushion to land on when my kid is climbing and jumping off of stuff.

It’s been awesome, and it’s still in great shape over three years later. We’ve recommended it to several people who’ve gone out and got one for their kids, and each of those people has said it’s been perfect – my sister got a small memory foam pad for her kid’s reading corner and he loves it. For those who feel weird using a dog bed and are worried people will judge them, you can cover it with a crib sheet, or cover/wrap it with a small blanket.

Allergies Uncovered

A recurring mild or serious cough can be a sign of an allergy. I had a cough for months that wouldn’t go away, a friend made me take an antihistamine and it cleared right up. Turned out I was allergic to house dust, and a hypoallergenic pillow case was all I needed to cure the cough for good.

Knotorious Elegance

The runner’s knot for shoelaces.

Basically, instead of loop-swoop-pull, you swoop around twice before pulling the bow tight. The extra friction keeps the laces from coming untied accidentally, and (unlike double-knotting) it pulls loose like a normal knot.

It’s especially helpful for dress shoes with smaller round laces.

Unfortunately, everything I find on YouTube when looking for an example is showing videos about the heel lock feature of the extra eyelets.

Leaf it to the Mower

Instead of raking and bagging leaves on your lawn, put your lawn mower in its lowest setting and just mow them. Not only does this take minutes instead of hours of back-breaking labor, but most of the small pieces just blow away in the wind, and what is left behind fertilizes, and protects your lawn over the winter. You also save money, by not having to buy bags.

Bubblegum Brainiac

If you are a student, chew a different flavored gum for each subject when in class and studying.

When you go to test, do the same. The smell and flavor will help jog your memory. You can do this even on highly controlled proctored exams. Just start the gum before you walk in (they make you remove everything before testing, but you can keep already chewing gum).

The edge it gives you is not insignificant

Better-Strike7290