Questions tagged [efficiency]
Hacks related to reducing the time, materials, or energy needed to accomplish a task.
100
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How to remove wrinkles to ease ironing
What is best way to iron clothes with so much wrinkles? I find it’s so hard to iron. What are ways to make ironing easy?
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143
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How can I make my work from home table interesting and comfy
I'm looking for a change but don’t know what to change, deal? Chair or just both? I find myself pulling laptop and putting it on my knee and raising to eye level (see image below). Which is annoying ...
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5
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How do I carry my keys, airpods, phone, wallet, and glasses?
I have 5 things I need to carry when I head out for all but the most basic errands:
keys to my car, office, and mailbox
folding sunglasses (I wish I could lose these but bright sunlight hurts my eyes)...
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6
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3
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221
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How to wash with a minimum of water?
I am looking for a lifehack that will allow me to take care of my personal hygiene when there is no water in the tap. I have access only to 2 liters of water a day to wash myself.
How can this be done ...
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How can I wear small disposable gloves on a medium size hand?
I bought the wrong-sized disposable gloves for the kitchen. They are a lot and I do not want to throw them away without knowing if there is any way I can get them on my hands without tearing them ...
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What's the best way to separate a crunchy snack from crumbs
Another half-empty bag of crisps and crumbs…
I enjoy crunchy snacks; but, when I open the plastic pillow packets much of the contents has settled leaving half of the bag empty. It's filled with a gas, ...
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173
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Has anyone tried using some custom drill bit for can openers? [closed]
Just wondering if anyone has come up with a drill bit attachment that could operate handle for can opener? Yes, I'm lazy! But on those special occasions when I have to open a bunch of veggies and ...
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3
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How would you find a torn page (to repair) in a large book
I enjoy problem solving (Lifehacking). Recently, someone asked me how I would find a torn page (to repair) in a large book. "Large" is the operative word here. It is inconveniently large — ...
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How to minimize the sound of my laptop fans
I need to make sure to connect my monitor to my laptop, whilst it is quiet enough for me to work. I'm thinking of getting a 4 meter cable so that I can place the laptop under a nearby couch, whilst in ...
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How can I prevent super glue from getting on my fingers?
I was just wondering if anyone knew of anyway that I could manage to prevent getting super glue on my fingers while using it. I need to use super glue to fix a few things that my children have broken ...
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How to avoid doing dishes (after microwaving food)
So if I put a dish in the microwave, is there a way to avoid getting the plate dirty so I don’t have to worry about doing dishes? I was thinking stuff like french fries, pizza variations (bite sized, ...
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How to pour out liquid from pan
Some people are able to fill a cup from the following kind of saucepan without any mess, but how? I want to pour liquid out with no mess, but the pan doesn’t have a beak.
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Prevent Riding-Mower deck v-belt from slipping in tall or wet grass
My Yardman MTD riding mower has a deck with a belt that's engaged only when I want to start cutting grass. The deck belt loops around a number of pulleys, and sometimes slips when I go too quickly in ...
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4
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850
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Simple cheap solution to plug in one pair of headphones into two audio sources (two laptops)
I have a nice comfy pair of over the ear headphones which i would like to plug in to two audio sources (two laptops or one laptop and one phone).
Are there any cheap solutions for this, like a reverse ...
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2
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7
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What can I do to automate shaking of a sauce bottle?
I have little sauce bottles of about 40 milliliters (photo below). At any given instance I have about 40 such bottles which need to be shaken in an up-and-down motion so the ingredients in the bottle ...
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5
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6
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Fold hack for tons of washed clothes
We recently moved with a relative family and there are a lot of clothes that get washed. My wife is type 1 and with all kids and baby she is drained of energy. I wanted to find out if there is a quick ...
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Better location for deep freeze: garage or inside the house?
Now with health care leaders advising that we minimize how often we leave the house for shopping and such, a deep freezer chest to store a month (or more)'s worth of perishables has become a pretty ...
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How to reduce accidentally pressing the right-button on a trackball?
Instead of a computer mouse, I use a trackball for a pointing device. I find that it is much healthier for my wrist, elbow, and shoulder.
The only downside I experience is that I often accidentally ...
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140
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How to make extender plugs neat?
At place like desk or near bad, usually lots of power plug from electronics charging, fan, lamps, laptops, like from three to ten. Using extender plug is required, but messy. Is there any way to make ...
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4
votes
6
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Shared tools always getting lost
I'm part of a small team of datacenter worker drones, and we're constantly wasting time hunting for tools because we can't find what we need.
In the case of some tools, I've just taken to buying ...
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1
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How do I get the ink flowing in new gel pens?
My new 72 pack of gel pens are 75% unusable due to the ink in the gel pens being stuck at the wrong end of the pen and no ink near the tip? How can I get the ink flowing down the tube to the point? I'...
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How to keep Super Glue tip tube clear
How do you keep a Super Glue tip tube clear so the lid is not always glued on, or it clogs?
Has anyone tried a toothpick? But even they seem too large and will just get stuck as well! I keep it stored ...
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How do I prevent stacked drinking glasses from sticking together?
I don't have enough shelf space for each glass to sit separately.
I must stack them to fit. The problem is worse for some sets of drinking glasses than others. It might be because of their shape, ...
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How can reuse partial notebook to go waste
I got some Notebooks which are 15 or 25% filled. One of them I love it and do not want to throw it away as it got 75% empty pages, instead I want to use to take notes, but as 25% is filled with stuff ...
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How to keep my glasses clean from getting marks
It is really annoying to keep taking reading/driving glasses off to clean them and put them back on to know there is a new spot or new spot appear and there is at least one tissue going to waste every ...
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I am looking for ways to send emails efficiently
I have a standard email to reply to all enquiries from my website, however I need everytime to edit few words, such as the name of the person, dates, codes, etc.
Do you know a way of doing this fast ...
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2
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How to evenly trim a mustache in front of a mirror? [duplicate]
I often trim my mustache in front of a mirror and it always confuses me which side of the mustache I am currently trimming, which then leads to an unbalanced mustache. Is there a life hack for this ...
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212
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How can I increase my eating speed?
My eating speed is not as fast as normal people. In parties and other events I can't eat according to my need because of speed issue. In friends circle when we eat something they make fun of my eating ...
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3
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Archive Papers from Binder (this comes under Library Science)
I manage most of our household by using a 5 x 7 binder (portable costs about $10) to write things down, move papers around. One moment I may need to reference and note down medical information, next ...
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How to shade bubbles well on optical answer sheets
I constantly have exams that require to shade bubbles on an optical answer sheet. Usually I will shade it with a 0.5 (2B) lead mechanical pencil. I think I shade quite hard sometimes(not sure if the ...
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Are there ways to tell how spicy salsa is without tasting it?
I've found myself in situations like potlucks where there are chips and salsa available with several salsas to choose from. I don't mind trying each one, but it's often the case that there are people ...
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An alternative (cheaper) option than offering towel service at the gym
We have just got a gym facility at my work, however, we do not currently offer towel service as it is quite expensive.
Does anyone know of any alternatives to offering this service? For example, a ...
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207
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How to quickly switch between typing and drawing?
I sometimes have to make drawings and writings very quickly in succession. For example, I will type 5 to 10 seconds, and then draw something for 5 to 10 seconds, repeatedly.
This means that I have ...
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3
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How to segment ones life/data?
I find myself thinking about organizing my digital stuff again. The whole thing started with the thought "What would the optimal folder structure look like?". Thinking about this, I came to the ...
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How to save the water wasted while waiting for the shower to heat up?
It takes about 30 to 45 seconds for my shower to heat up. A lot of perfectly good water goes down the drain while I wait for the water to get up to temperature. Rather than letting this water go to ...
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How not to lose too much warmth while leaving the door open
I have a dog, who is used to staying at my house while I have gone for work. I leave the door open so that he can go out for hygienic reasons.
During summer, this is not a problem because I stop the ...
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3
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6
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477
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Parking stop ideas
Need help parking my truck at an angle in my three car garage, without hitting my wife’s sedan. I have an HD 2500 with a headache rack that only fits in the garage at an angle with my wife’s car in ...
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Tie 350ml liquor bottles to a string or chain?
I'm dressing up for Halloween and my costume requires me to tie a couple of empty 350ml bottles to something I can wear around my neck. They have to be well secured.
The bottles look something like ...
4
votes
6
answers
491
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What's a great way to store knives for me?
My situation: I have accumulated high-quality purpose-made knives which are difficult to store due to several factors:
I have more than a few (23), and some (7) that I use quite often.
I want them to ...
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4
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2
answers
473
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How to clean air indoors
What is the best way to clean indoor air the lifehacker way?
That is, excluding store-bought air purifiers of expensive brands.
Something like DIY: Building an energy efficient and low cost filter ...
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2
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5
answers
609
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Use 52/56oz liquid soap refill bottles directly?
I recently bought some 52/56oz liquid soap refill bottles and want to use them directly instead of following the normal (messy and tedious) process of pouring them into 7.5oz dispensers. What's the ...
user83
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4
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How to Vertically holster beard-hair trimmer & electric shaver, and suspend it using a shelf over bathroom counter?
Bathroom counter, with electrical socket, mirror & glass shelves on adjoining wall.
Also, electric shaver at bottom of pic on Counter
Electric trimmer, depicting shape etc
Now, based on ...
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How to keep a vertical row of multiple soap bars vertically instead of typical horizontal one-soap dish?
So for illustration i have organic type of soap bars that I use now thanks to the TSA liquid drama.
The slimmer ones in the pic are 3 cm exact and I go through varieties that are thicker as well as ...
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Posters / attaching paper
Okay so I wanna make a poster that at least looks like I didn't cut it in half, glue it back together and leave it in a sauna for a while so I was wondering if there was an easy way to attach papers ...
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1
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How can I speed up healing of a cut on stretchy skin?
I accidentally got a cut in on the webbing of my thumb (just the skin, not tendons are anything). This is very stretchy skin that moves quite a bit and so it's healing very slowly. Unfortunately "Don'...
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378
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Efficient life hack to peel a jicama
The jicama (yam bean) is a delicious snack. But peeling one is not the most pleasant experience. It can be quite time consuming. The fact that the peel contains a fat-soluble organic toxin (...
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5
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How to empty a sponge of its soap?
Whenever I use a sponge and any soap-like product to clean a surface, I get the unfortunate effect that the sponge seems to always be full of that product afterwise.
I can repeat dozens of "fill with ...
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5k
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How to clean out a pencil sharpener
Often when I use a pencil sharpener a lot, the pencil shavings and lead gets jammed in the sharpener part. What's an efficient way of cleaning it out?
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Sharing grocery costs and responsibility
I've just started living with a partner for the first time and we share all our food shopping. I am constantly finding myself not knowing what food is in the cupboard (when at the shop) and who owes ...
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Finding a gold ring lost in the house
How can I find a gold ring lost in my bedroom, kitchen, or living room? I've already read this question, but it seems that many of the answers given there wouldn't apply to a search inside. It was ...
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