your stupid little life hacks that make even a tiny difference
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Anonymous
| Turn the tab on your canned soda so it's over the drinking hole and insert your straw. Yes you can put a straw in your drink without the tab.... but the straw will tend to float up out of the can. When it's placed through the tab-- it keeps it from floating up. |
Anonymous
| Use your hair straightener to iron shirt collars. |
Anonymous
| I turned my empty tube of lip balm into a secret cash stash. |
Anonymous
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I like a paper grocery list. I take a regular printer paper and fold it into 6 parts. One side I list our meals for dinner and broad ideas for breakfast and lunches. On the other side I have categories. 1. Produce 2. Meat/protein 3. Dairy/eggs 4. Pantry 5. Frozen 6. Other.
I organize my list based on those categories. When I’m at the store I get all the produce and finish one category right away. The pantry is often different aisles but dairy/eggs are always close and frozen is knocked out quickly. It feels more efficient to me than a checklist. When I get home I keep the paper for meal ideas and use a magnet to post it to my organizer board in the kitchen. |
Anonymous
| Adding a teaspoon of baking soda to the water when boiling eggs can help make the shells easier to peel. |
Anonymous
+1. My brother turned into a slob once he moved out. |
Anonymous
We use this too! It’s been super helpful. And now that ds has a phone, I’ve added him too so he can put his favorites on the list when they run low. |
Anonymous
| I write all my produce on a white board on my fridge. It helps reduce food waste and encourage me to eat my veggies. |
Anonymous
Right when I turn the oven on. Just take the regular baking time and add the time it takes the oven to heat up. I use frozen chicken because it’s quick and easy to get one piece. The goal is to get it in the oven and back to work in under 3 minutes. I use a different spice or marinade each day, so it adds some variety. |
Anonymous
If you have an insta pot, using it makes the shells just fall off. I do 18 at a time so it may not be worth it for smaller quantities. |
Anonymous
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I haven’t seen a ton of laundry hacks - mom of 6 here so these made a big difference to me.
When we had fewer kids, I did all the family laundry together. Once we hit three I found that keeping a laundry basket and washing everyone’s clothes separate saved me a lot of time on the folding side. It worked so much better for us with multiple kids. I do my and my husband together as it’s easy to tell apart. Once they hit high school they need to do their own laundry. Train them always to not put it in inside out. Buying bulk socks and tossing them into a bin and not matching. I still do this with dhs work black socks. Sheets and towels only in white. You will appreciate when teenage acne and benzoyl peroxide hits. Sheet sets get folded and placed into the pillowcase so they all stay together. I then pop an elastic label on them that says the size. We gave up having decorative pillows on our bed and my husband would say this is his favorite life hack. He used to be so annoyed taking them off every time the bed was made. I don’t miss them. I am not a super techy person but spending some time to make our digital life more organized was worth the investment. I am a person who sets timers and puts everything in the calendar. It helps me relax knowing I won’t forget - I think this one really depends on your personality. I also did a huge project and organized our digital photos. Learning the Apple photos program and how to find photos fast when I need them was the best life hack for me this year. The facial recognition features and removal of duplicates especially. I don’t save anything other than photos into my roll - for those I use the Notes app and then delete the photos. iPhone makes this really easy to do. I also am much better about taking fewer photos and immediately choosing and favoriting the best and deleting the rest. Being able to find photos for my daughter’s senior stuff without being sent into a panic is worth it. Buy cable label stickers from Amazon and label all the chargers that go with toys and electronics in your house. |
Anonymous
| Mom of 6 again - could probably write a small book kitchen hacks but my biggest one would be to assign everyone their own water cup to keep in an area on a counter. It gets washed every 2-3 days. |
Anonymous
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Zero chicken recipe for Instant Pot. Easy hands off way to make steamed chicken. I do it for salads.
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Anonymous
I have Alexa ready my current kindle book whenever I am doing something boring. The kindle book syncs up so I can pick it up an actually read it from where Alexa stopped off. |
Anonymous
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OP, since you like arugula…make a dressing with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, coarse salt, and pepper and throw it on arugula with Parmesan shavings. I like really lemony stuff so I go heavier on the lemon juice and lighter on the oil.
My three hacks that are probably well known, but just in case… 1. Quickly remove tarnish from silver jewelry by lining a bowl with aluminum foil, sprinkle baking soda over your metal-only piece, and pour hot water to cover. 2. Denture cleaning tablets remove coffee/tea stains in coffee mugs and stainless steel cups. 3. I keep a paper calendar- just don’t like using Google calendars or what not. I use black ink for my work-related items and red ink for my personal items. That way I can easily scan the day/week/month and see what is personal and what is work. |