Asklemmy

How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.

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.

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.

To stop infinite scroll on social media, quickly scroll 2-3 screen lengths down without looking at the posts. Now read the posts scrolling up. Eventually you'll reach where you started and most probably the laziness to go all the way back will prompt you to exit the app.

You can just pinch the end of a banana to start peeling it. The effort required is far less than trying to overcome the ripping force of the stem.

Drink water instead of soda, alcohol, other sugary drinks. Eventually you'll find yourself to be an expert water connoisseur and prefer water over pretty much all beverages.

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.

I scrape CVV number of my credit card and save it on my smartphone because if I lost my credit card nobody will be able to shop on line

You can rename files in Windows using the F2 key. This works for a lot of Microsoft products including editing a cell without overwriting it in Excel.

When I was in the end of my PhD, everything except writing my thesis made me feel guilty. I ended up learning to find joy and peace in doing laundry and washing dishes. They became my guilt-free breaks — I had to do these things. FYI - I didn’t enjoy washing dishes before.

Washing dishes has become a really powerful part of my day, haha. Not only is it still a guilt-free break but it is a daily reminder to be mindful. I’ve noticed that whenever I drop and break a dish, my mind is not present. In fact, in those moments my mind might actually be drifting somewhere negative.

Maybe not so much a “hack” as a … lesson? Or something? But yeah, the whole cliche about having the right attitude and being present and mindful. I try to apply it in other parts of life, not just the dishes.

Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It's amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Nobody who bike commutes is fat.

Not exactly life hacks, but shortcuts that can help computer users:

• holding CTRL and pressing the arrow keys will move the text cursor whole words, instead of 1 character at a time. Also works with Delete and Backspace
• CTRL + Home will move the cursor to the start of the file, CTRL + End to the end of the file or textbox.
• Windows 10 users can use the Xbox bar to record their screens. By default, the shortcut is Windows button + Alt + R

For anyone that uses the sink to wash dishes, have a net/grid to cover the hole. Once it's full, just pick it up and dump the contents in your food trash.

You can use any type of soap to create barriers that ants will avoid. If you plug a hole with some soap (try a piece of soap bar that's wet/soft), the ants won't reopen it.

Using "≈" and "≠" sign on internet text.
These are literally long press options on the "=" key.

People wonder why I’m an optimist. I’m not really. What I do is expect people to disappoint me. After all, none of us are perfect. When they don’t I’m surprised. When they do, I’m not mad, as just met my expectations.

I find people who don’t like other people expect them to not disappoint them and when they do they get angry and upset. It’s really just a mindset change.

• A pressure cooker

• A ghetto bidet:
  3D print it, or take a small softdrink bottle, make a hole in it's neck using a hot needle or corkscrew. Fill it with water, hold it upside down and squirt your butthole clean with it. Use a little toiletpaper or cloth to dab it dry. Can't live without it anymore.