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.
For a second I thought you were talking about masturbation.
This will sound stupid. But if you press your thumb onto the center of your hand, and then close the others fingers around and press, you’ll suppress your gag reflex.
This saved me when I had to take some medicine as big pills. Without this trick they often got stuck in my throat, and it could take me minutes to properly swallow. With the trick? No problems anymore.
I also use this for pills.
Just for pills.
The pills.
Yes.
How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.
Or soda. Or sugary drinks in general.
I hate the talk about soda. It’s a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn’t killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed. -stepping off my soapbox-
Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.
I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.
But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.
I had better seafood in Greece than anywhere else in Europe. Fresh grilled octopus with a squeeze of lemon, fried sardines, squid salad, everything just perfect. (Note: I haven’t done Nordic countries, and they might do cod/coldwater-fish/etc. better, but that’s be a different style.)
I feel like there’s a subtlety here. Ocassional Glass of wine with dinner versus binge drinking.
Of course the problem is that the first drink makes then next one more attractive and degrades impulse control… so YMMV.
Having a glass of wine every day is not healthy.
I drink pretty much only on the weekends and that’s pretty seldom.
Is one glass of wine really that bad though? Like compared to a glass of grape juice? Because of the sugars and calories and is alcohol in this percentage range (approx 14%) enough to cause damage to your liver over time?
Again I’m talking about one glass
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.
This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.
Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.
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.
Yes! The ranger roll… https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/how-to/how-to-pack-a-bag-using-the-ranger-roll/
Using “≈” and “≠” sign on internet text.
These are literally long press options on the “=” key.Improve the cold tolerance and immunity by going to sauna during cold days.
Embrace the cold and don’t overheat yourself by wearing too many layers.
When go cycling or running don’t wear to many clothes, so you won’t overheat yourself. You should feel slight cold and the exercise will heat you.
People usually catch flu due to low immunity or overheating and switching between environments of high temperature difference.
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.
Further, if you drop something small, like a screw, set the flashlight on the floor. This will make all the small things cast long shadows and stand out way more.
A magnet also works for some items.
Same, I found my flashlight that way
You can rename files in Windows using the
F2key. This works for a lot of Microsoft products including editing a cell without overwriting it in Excel.Works in most softwares. Also F1 often opens a help menu/manual (although those are usually kinda useless IMHO lol)
F3 lets you edit an Excel cell without using your damned mouse on Windows. So handy, I added the shortcut to my non-Windows setup.
If you want to open a padlock and don’t have the key, you can almost certainly break it open with 2 big wrenches.
I only had 1 opportunity to try that yet, when removing a 20 year old lock some stupid kid left on my stuff and then forgot where I put the key, but man did it feel empowering.
You can practice this trick at any romantic bridge. Do you really think whoever etched their initials on the lock is still together and would notice? PleaseYou can shim a surprising number of them with a cut up soda can. If you’ve got the time, lockpicks are pretty easy to buy and a novice can pick most locks in less than an hour with a “raking” technique.
If you can’t defeat the lock, attack the mount. A lot of doors/drawers/cabinets use thin punched steel, or mild steel for the hasp/lock point. You can get through those in a few minutes with files, saws, pliers, etc.
My landleech padlocked the basement and attic of the house I rent. I keep a large screwdriver for exactly this eventuality. Something goes wrong in the basement and that lock point is done for. Just slip it in the gap around the padlock and pull. Will only take about 200N to rip the thing off the door and I can get way more than that with a little bit of leverage.
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.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn’t formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
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.
This works for so many occasions too. At a watermelon eating contest? Backup in the car. Going to a funeral? Backup in the car. Need to bury a body? Backup clothing, right there.
Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.
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.
Or you won’t be able to find your shoes, panic because you’re running late, and forget about the thing you needed because of said panic.
That’s why you always leave a note.
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.
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.”
