Anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way might be called a life hack. The term became popularized in the blogosphere and is primarily used by geeks who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow.My earlier post on dorm room engineering is a good example of that sort of thing. Here are a few more that I've been using lately.
I recently got a new credit card and a new driver's license, so I had to dispose of the old ones somehow. Everyone knows that if you throw them away without shredding them first, you've basically said put a big sign with "Calling all identity thieves!" over your head. Personally, I think those fears are a little overblown; I doubt anyone's going to go rooting through a closed trashbag in a college dumpster, but why risk it? Unfortunately, I don't have a shredder and I'm terminally lazy, so what did I do? I keep both cards on my desk, underneath a pair of scissors. Every few days, I've been cutting one strip off of each and tossing it into the trash can right from my desk. I make sure not to do it twice before taking the trash out, and bam. Identity thieves successfully repelled.
Speaking of laziness, I came across this blog post recently with an interesting idea to combat procrastination. The idea is that you work in 30 minute cycles: 30 minutes of absolute, focused work, no distractions whatsoever, followed by 30 minutes of guilt-free relaxation, then you repeat the cycle. I started trying it tonight, and I've already put my laundry away, cleaned off my floor and desk, and I'm actually writing a substantive blog post! It might seem like I'll only get half as much work done this way, but that's only by comparison to a hypothetical perfect me who works well all the time. If I work with this cycle from 10 PM to midnight, I'll have put in (theoretically) an hour of good, solid work. If I just told myself at 10 that I was going to start working, without any kind of schedule like this, I'd probably goof off and accomplish very little in those two hours.
I've got pretty high hopes for this idea, if I can stick to it, because it seems pretty well-suited to me. My problem has always been that I'm capable of working really hard and effectively, but I'm terrible at motivating myself to do it. I can't count how many papers and projects I've done at the very last minute that have actually turned out pretty well, but I have to ask, how productive could I be if I could summon that work ethic at any time, instead of when a deadline forces me into it? My hope is that it'll be easier to work really hard for that half hour, because I know that after the thirty minutes are up, I'm perfectly free to relax and not think about my work. The real challenge is going to be forcing myself to be focused in the half hour, and not check facebook and my email every five seconds. We'll see how it goes tonight, I still haven't tried it with actual homework, just general chores I needed to get done.
Finally, a classic lifehack utterly failed for me earlier today: the afternoon nap. I came home from my last class today at 5:30, and I was exhausted. Rather than stay up, I just set my alarm for 6:30, figuring I'd wake up refreshed. Nope. I woke up just as tired as I had been, which is pretty unfair. It's like I'd made a contract with my body: I'll sacrifice an hour of my free time that could be spent having fun, and in exchange, you'll be more awake and ready to do stuff. I held up my end of the bargain admirably, but my body completely bailed out! I'm considering legal action.
Your credit card solution is a total stitch. Love it!
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