Share Your Life Hacks!

Fixing and making things, what tools to get and what skills to learn, ...
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Ego
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:I think of (life) hacks as something one uses to solve problems that are caused by a bungled system. In other words, it's a patch/band-aid applied to a systemic problem.

Rather than hacking something that's broken, I prefer to redesign the whole thing. As such, I don't really pay much attention to life hacks. In a sense, they remind me of couponing, which is a way to buy what's usually bad food at cheaper prices. I'd rather redesign my diet.

.......

An ERE lifestyle is one big life hack w/o internal contradictions. As such it does not need to be hacked further.
I need pants. I wish I lived in a world where I don't, but right now the world I live in requires that I wear something covering the lower portion of my body. I could buy a series of ten-wash-and-trash pants from Walmart or I can get one pair made of Schoeller Dryskin fabric that will last five years but cost the same as 10 of the Walmarts. What if I found a way to get the Schoeller pants for the price of one pair of Walmarts. Is that not an ERE hack?

vivacious
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by vivacious »

@Ego, if possible then do it.

I think there are plenty of ERE hacks. Lots of ways to simplify different parts of life or little tips or tricks to make things easier etc.

@Jacob, I don't know why ERE has to preclude that. So you set up your system but you can fine tune plenty of details in it etc.

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jennypenny
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by jennypenny »

I guess my point wasn't really the cleaning products. My point was that I already have baking soda and vinegar because I use them in the kitchen and bleach because I keep it for water purification, so the 'hack' is using products I already have to clean the bathroom. Add to the list dish soap, bar soap, borax, and washing soda (which I can make from baking soda) and I can clean anything.

@C40--I missed your post before. It's easy, right?!

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

I want to know how akratic opens a bottle of wine with a SHOE! :)

JennyPenny, you are right about cleaners made from baking soda, vinegar, etc., items that you already have on your shelves, that have multiple uses. Fewer products = simplicity, and I'll bet that you save money on your homemade cleaners as well.

I've incorporated the cleaners above into a cleaning system here and it works for us. The Scrubbing Bubbles is a recent addition secondary to the bathroom renovation/tub re-glazing. Before that, it was Lysol (diluted in a spray bottle) Windex, Bona for the hardwood floors, liquid dish detergent, and the occasional Pledging of the house. (Pledge shines up quartz countertops LIKE A BOSS.)

I fought off Scrubbing Bubbles until I started using it. Now, I have to admit, I'm pretty hooked.

In order to give the visual of more space and to compliment the clean lines and light reflective surfaces I wanted in that small bathroom (with no window, no natural light) we installed a semi-frameless, totally clear tub/shower enclosure. The white subway tiles, the white tub, and everything we put in the shower in terms of hygiene items is on full display. *Nothing* is hiding behind a shower curtain, and water spots will show. Not only will they show, due to the relatively small footprint of the bathroom, they'll be right in your face.

I know, I know, we could have chosen surfaces/finishes/items in which water spots, the occasional mold/mildew/dirty tub, weren't as visible. We could have, and from a maintenance and even a financial perspective (bathroom cleaners) that might have been the smarter choice.

We have one full bath and one half bath in this small house. When this house was built, the half bath was a huge luxury! The full hall bath is small by today's standards (but HEY! it has a LINEN CLOSET in its envelope/footprint, again, a LUXURY when this house was built) and we use it EVERY DAY. In fact, we reserve the half bath (attached to one of the bedrooms) for guests and the occasional OMG emergency, so we do not have to clean it all the time.

I wanted to give that hall bath the visual aspect of shiny, light filled (even though there is no window) and a bit modern with a nod to the vintage of the house. We kept the perfectly good cast iron tub- it has the right lines for the house and it is cast iron. I wasn't going to re-surface it because it was basically white- although the original grout lines were visible around the tub because the new tub hop didn't extend as far onto the tub surface. We have a new grandbaby, however YOU MAY CALL ME GRANDMAMA, THANK YOU! and our vintage cast iron tub tested mildly positive for lead. We had it re-glazed, and I said goodbye to my old school and much loved Comet and hello to Scrubbing Bubbles.

Hopping in the tub and spraying the interior of the tub/shower down with Scrubbing Bubbles a couple of times a week keeps everything shiny and clean and so far has completely prevented mold/mildew.

I don't mind paying a reasonable price for a product if it delivers on its promises. Bonus round, Costco carries Scrubbing Bubbles, and Costco puts Scrubbing Bubbles in multipacks on sale a couple of times a year.

If I wasn't buying this stuff in bulk at Costco I'd probably be all about the homemade recipes as well. The cost at Costco isn't much more than the cost for buying ingredients to make my own, especially when Costco puts this stuff on sale.

C40, you are so right, GRANDMA RULES! My grandmothers taught me so much!

And yes, please, everyone, let me see your "systems," the parts of your systems that you like the most, the parts of your systems that you wish you could improve, the parts of your systems of which you are most proud- heck, your entire system if that's what's appropriate. I love the input!

anomie
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by anomie »

I agree with @Jacob, though hardly able to articulately support my position.

A lifestyle thoughtfully designed should not require workarounds.

That's the point --> to construct a life that you do not need to build shortcuts in to survive or thrive.

Maybe my issue is with the term "life hacks".




(though am curious and searching for a reddit post on the term recently posted....)

anomie
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by anomie »

This may be more in the "what to do with all the sh*t in your house" category than in the ERE life hack category, but this is latest Reddit.com Life Hack that I found:

http://imgur.com/a/zyii8


I used the 'toilet paper tube as computer cable caddy' idea from a similar type picture collage ....

hth.

Triangle
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by Triangle »

I agree with anomie that the problem is the term "hack". It's a popular term right now, just like people like to call everyone, and especially themselves, hackers. Often times they just mean "different from the norm", in which case ERE itself is a "hack".

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

P.S. We renovated the bathroom because it was 54 years old, and because the full wrap tile surround was cracked, the grout on the tile floor was shot and the tiles were loose, and there was a leak behind the tile tub surround. We had to pull the bathroom down to the studs and the floor joists, replace a floor joist and some flooring, and build back out. While I appreciate the aesthetics of the renovation it wasn't all about fashion.

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Ego
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by Ego »

Triangle wrote:I agree with anomie that the problem is the term "hack". It's a popular term right now, just like people like to call everyone, and especially themselves, hackers. Often times they just mean "different from the norm", in which case ERE itself is a "hack".
I had to look up Life Hack on wikipedia. I always thought it referred to beating or finding a way around the system. Learned something new.

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

Yeah, maybe I chose the wrong term. :)

Or, referring to Ego's comment and the Wikipedia definition, maybe I chose the right term. :)

anomie
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by anomie »

hmm, certainly a sexy definition ...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_hacking

Life hacking refers to any productivity trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method to increase productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life; in other words, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way, variably a Juggaar, might be called a life hack.

Coined in the 1980s in hacker culture, the term became popularized in the blogosphere and is primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming.

"Life" refers to an individual's productivity, personal organization, work processes, or any area the hacker ethic can be applied to solve a problem. The terms hack, hacking, and hacker have a long history of ambiguity in the computing and geek communities, particularly within the free and open source software crowds.

Matty
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by Matty »

I stopped washing my hair. It seemed like a pointless process to continually wash out my natural hair oils and then have to apply various petroleum based oils (hair products) to keep my hair from being frizzy and generally dry. I stopped washing and now the oil from my head provides all the hair product I need. Saved myself the "need" for 2+ products and 10-15 minutes per day in washing/styling time. I also started cutting my hair at home. Another option would be to shave your head. Some people say they could never do this becuase their hair would get too oily, smelly etc. I think in general your hair will adjust. My hair feels alot nicer than it did with products in it and has a faint nautral smell of hair.

Also, pretty standard but one of my favourites is batch meals. An hour or two in the kitchen on Sunday and you can have lunches, dinners and snacks set for the week. Much more efficient than cooking up individual meals.

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

Matty, I don't wash my hair all that much any more either. I have naturally curly hair and the less I wash it, the better it behaves. I rinse it well every day in the shower and let it air dry naturally. I use a non-sulfate shampoo about once a week now, even less in the winter. My hair changed as I aged and accumulated some gray. I've been lucky; the gray is really pretty, but gray hair is dry and it has a different texture. I finally figured out that sulfate shampoos were stripping it of its natural oils, just like you said.

To date I've bought sulfate free/argon oil products at Sally Beauty Supply for the price point, but I'm beginning to see sulfate free/argon oil products at competitive prices at discount retailers.

I find that for my hair, you are right, the best treatment is no treatment at all, just rinsing it out daily.

Batch meals are awesome. :)

I also like to cook once/eat several times with basic ingredients. If you are going to use both the purchased utility provided energy and your own energy and time, fill up the pot/oven/grill. If I have to boil water to cook pasta, for instance, I cook the whole box. One half of the pasta makes one recipe, the other half makes another recipe. Ditto rice, etc.

Speaking of food, one of my favorite food hacks is powdered milk. We don't mix it to drink it, but I do use it for cooking, and occasionally for coffee/tea cream if needed. It is shelf stable for a pretty long time (it typically has a "best if used by" date on the package.) I make homemade yogurt from powdered milk.

Oatmeal- plain old rolled oats in the big box from Costco. Great as oatmeal in the morning, great as binders for other foods (salmon cakes with oatmeal are AWESOME, so moist) meatloaf, etc. Can be used to stretch ground beef in just about any form. Also awesome in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. :)

Mayonnaise- a great source of fat for so many things. Mayonnaise in a jar may be one of the best inventions of the modern world. Again, works in so many recipes. Add your own herbs and spices to make flavored/specialty mayonnaise. Make your own salad dressings. I think mayonnaise may be its own food group.

One of my goals (I keep not getting to this one) is learning how to make mayonnaise from eggs, olive oil and lemon juice. I believe that there is some concern about salmonella and raw eggs... so a good pasteurized jar mayonnaise is really quite the "luxury" convenience item that most of us take for granted (at least I know that I do!)

jacob
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by jacob »

Windex --- try recipe #3 (or #4 which = #3 + denatured alcohol)
http://www.crunchybetty.com/battle-of-t ... s-cleaners
Seriously, this concoction is ten times better than the commercial stuff. We used it in the RV (lots of windows all the way around!) Make it on a need basis. You can flush the rest down the drain. Always at hand. No need to go get something.

The way I understand hacking in the hacker sense---and I may be wrong---is a clever change of an existing system to somehow improve that system. For instance, a software hacker takes existing source code and adds/modifies a feature to solve a problem.

I see this as different from computer engineering which is the construction of a solution to a problem from scratch.

In hacking, the solution is obtained by modifying (hacking) an existing solution to another problem.
In engineering, the solution is obtained by building the solution from first principles/scratch.

I find myself objecting to the "hacking" because ERE is an engineering approach. Thus it should not be necessary to hack it by construction. That is, if you need to hack it, you built it wrong.

On the other hand, if you have a solution that's wrong for you, you can hack it.

But I'd rather rebuild it. I think it's better to build a lifestyle that fits than taking an existing one that doesn't fit and hacking it until it does fit. Like sewing clothes. Better to make it right than tailor it to change the size/fit.

I'm not really trying to define what's kosher as much as I'm trying to make it clear how I see it; also in case things weren't completely clear. In my opinion, engineering is far superior to hacking. The only reason to hack something is due to time/resource constraints. Hence, I rarely think in terms of hacking my life.

So just a philosophical point.

Hack away ...

Triangle
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by Triangle »

@jacob: The way "hacker" is used in Silicon Valley is like you describe, hacker vs. engineer. But the focus here isn't on modifying vs. creating. An engineer takes a systematic approach to solve a known problem. A "hacker" (in SV) skips important steps, doesn't think about all the details and is therefore a lot faster. The point of this is that (according to SV mythology) you can't engineer a solution if you don't know what the problem is exactly, so "hacking" let's you throw together a quick solution to test if you're down the right path or if you're wasting your time. Later, you'll get an engineer and to it right, once you've got paying customers and such.

So if used like this, a "hack" is really an experiment.

But there's a lot of different definitions of the word "hacker" out there..

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

@ Jacob- Aha! Crunchy Betty! I've referred to that site for beauty products but I've never looked at the cleaning products. Thank you for the link!

I am aware of your RV adventure, btw. Hats off to you for that- many people wouldn't have tried it. We have a small travel trailer (18' box) and that's one of the "energy intensive" activities we enjoy. Our travel trailer is our primary mode of travel when we do so.

We've completed several trips of approximately two weeks in duration, plus or minus a couple of days. The trailer has a domestic sized fridge with a separate freezer, and it's possible with planning and careful packing to take along almost all of the food one needs for two weeks out. The galley also contains a double sink, a microwave, and a three burner range with a gas oven that has a smallish baking oven (above the burner element) and a broiler (below the burner element.) The trailer has a double bed, a jackknife sofa, one small slide that pulls the sofa out of the trailer and frees up some floor space, and a bathroom with a shower, sink/vanity, medicine cabinet and a toilet.

Housing, feeding, sleeping, and carrying all the stuff needed to negotiate life for two weeks (clothing, food, toiletries, bedding/linens, dishes/cutlery/cookware, dog accessories/needs, etc.) in approximately 144 sq ft is challenging but it can be done. This also includes cleaning and laundry supplies- because in two weeks time, you'll need to do some laundry and you *will* need to clean that trailer secondary to Labbie shedding and everyone tracking in and out. It is imperative to take what you need and leave everything else at home. :)

It is a lightweight trailer as RV trailers go, around 4000 lbs. fully loaded for a long trip, but without water in the tanks. We can pull it with a mid-sized SUV.

Yes, we own an SUV, but its primary mission is to pull our trailer and to get bags of pellets home to our pellet stove, when we find pellets on sale at the end of the season. (Otherwise we buy pellets by the pallet and have them delivered. That's a whole other thread.) Secondarily the SUV serves as our truck for the occasions when our DIY requires a truck.

Mostly the SUV stays parked in deference to fuel prices.

It is costly to tow a trailer- I won't argue that. So far it's still a cheaper way to travel when we need/want to travel.

If anybody wants to include their RV and/or camping and/or travel hacks in this thread, I'm all eyes! :)

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

... and if it really bothers you, I'll stop using the term "hack." For me, it's a catch-all word that encompasses many different types and levels of problem solving. If one is from a culture in which "hack" has negative connotations as a cobbled-together quick fix rather than a real solution, I can see how the term "hack" could be particularly annoying.

oldbeyond
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by oldbeyond »

I think there is much to be said for the definitions of hacking and engineering as you define them jacob. However, I don't think it is always, if ever, possible to engineer a solution that is perfect. Even in sublime feats of engineering, there is usually some small hack present if you look close enough. Is it always sensible to re-engineer a system from scratch if it works almost perfectly, but requires one small hack to be just right? I'd say this is bordering on perfectionism. Then again, if your solution is a series of contrived hacks, building something good from scratch obviously is a very worthwhile investment.

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jennypenny
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by jennypenny »

Huh. That wiki definition is different than what I thought. I always thought a hack was a better version of a bodge.

Seems like we need a new term for ERE micro-efficiencies.

BecaS
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Re: Share Your Life Hacks!

Post by BecaS »

I'm sitting here laughing at myself and at life.

I started a thread to solicit ideas about what I called "hacks," but what JennyPenny more accurately named "ERE micro-efficiencies."

I've gotten some interesting tips and some validation/commiseration/critiques on my methods- but what I've mostly gotten is a bunch of engineering types sitting around discussing the proper usage of the word "hack," and whether or not any sort of system survives its beta testing without the judicious application of well-chosen hacks, and whether hacks are legit problem solving tools vs. symptoms of poorly designed systems vs. problems in and of themselves.

In the meantime, I'm over in the corner at the other end of the room from the engineers, standing by the punch bowl, trying to get anybody at this party to talk to me, and I'm blathering on about oatmeal and Scrubbing Bubbles and mayonnaise.

Ok, right here is where I punch that BIG RED SHINY BUTTON and light up every engineer at this party. While all of you are gathered on the other side of the party discussing the finer points of the propellant and the ignition system, I'M OVER HERE LAUNCHING THE ROCKET. Neener neener neener! :p

C'mon, YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE SOME LIFE HACKS! Not *everything* that you do is pristine, streamlined, economical/waste-free, and dovetails perfectly with your surroundings, fueled by self-replenishing energies. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I'VE LIVED WITH ONE OF YOU FOR OVER 30 YEARS. YES THERE ARE SOME HACKS AND WE BOTH KNOW IT.

EMBRACE THE BEAUTY OF YOUR HACKS. WALLOW IN THE JOY OF THE MINOR IMPERFECTIONS THAT YOU HIDE FROM THE WORLD. FREE YOUR INNER MERE MORTAL- AND SHARE YOUR HACKS! :)

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