Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lifehacks

As a productivity coach how can I best serve information workers.

jeffreyclong — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:14:53 -0800

As a productivity coach how can I best serve information workers. I have discovered that after years of reading and implementing the systems and tools of Getting Things Done, Lifehacker.com and other productivity resources I have become a marketable professional resource to information workers. I have successfully coached for free 2 people in a high stress major software company in order to gain experience. I am now looking to understand their work environment better and hone my skills. I imagine there are many information workers on metafilter so I'm hoping you can help me out.

1. What are the specific difficulties that hinder you from being as successful at your work as you would like to be.

2. If you were going to work with a coach, what would be the best means to communicate in a manner that would not interfere with your work. My sole means of communicating so far has been email. But I am finding that my clients only fit me in, rather then having me be on their calendar. I've wondered about a 10-15 minute phone call twice a week with followup emails that review the conversation and contain action steps. What do you think?

3. What have been your most successful collaboration tools. One client's work email is and meetings are such high volume due to her involvement with multiple projects that she has little time to actually work. I suggested that groupware like a wiki, or backpackit.com or other 37signals webapps would significantly improve her team's productivity and slow down the flow of email. What similar tools have you used successfully. Can you recommend PC server-client software (I use a mac) for this purpose or webapps that are secure enough for a company that needs to protect its information.

4. If you would be willing to pay for such expertise, what would you or your company be willing to pay? What would be the return on investment that you would expect?

Thanks for any help you may provide.

"Oooh, look, an exotic native woman!" "Buzz off."

divabat — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:55:09 -0800

What are some good travel guide websites that aren't so Western-centric and don't treat other countries like exotic sights to gawk at? I just rediscovered Matador after randomly signing up for it years ago, and while it looks really promising, it does have a really strong colonial "we are American tourists off to see the exotic isles and be really awesome Americans saving the world" vibe around it. It's something I've noticed with travel companies in Australia too - I was at STA Travel's promo for gap years and to me it felt like the rest of the world was there for their entertainment, or that they were humble foreigners trying to civilize the savages with their volunteer jobs, or something.

Being Malaysian, and being used to being made exotic, that sort of vibe never really sat right with me. I've been travelling since I was a baby, I _love_ to travel, and I love volunteering wherever I can (I was on a world tour that was part performance part community work - best time ever). But I don't click with the party-hard, white-kid-saving-the-world-by-teaching-English, befriend-other-backpackers type lifestyle that groups like Matador and STA Travel tend to espouse.

Are there any other good websites and resources for travel that have a different view on things? I'm after more how-to sort of stuff, like the best organisations doing X or the most interesting things about Y in Z country, or how to pack for a trip (as opposed to personal stories of travel). I'm 23, so something geared for youth is great, but again I'm not much of a club-hopper type. Anything that can take account of currencies that don't really translate well overseas (Europe for Really Cheap!) would be great.

Thanks!

Help me, I'm a late adopter.

Zarkonnen — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:26:43 -0800

How do I learn new programming languages and start using modern web apps without getting frustrated and angry? So I'm in my mid-twenties and work in IT. I've been watching the last couple of years of exploding creativity on the net - literally millions of blogs, new programming languages, new ideas like twitter, citizen journalism, etcetera.

But lately I've realised that despite being able to see the potential benefits and really actually exciting possibilities of all this new stuff, I grumpily dismiss it and stick to how I've been doing things for the past couple of years. I use email, Java and PHP, and HTML 4.0.1 Transitional. I occasionally write some stuff in my site's news section, but I doubt my completely random ramblings make anyone come back. I'd like to think that I might have some interesting things to say on some topics, but I can't find the time to write about it, and it feels odd to intersperse "here's some photos I took" with "here's a detailed analysis of this political situation". I don't use Ruby Twitter XML Python LISP Quicksilver GTD Podcasts RSS Lifehacks. I don't contribute to wikis, or talk on forums (with the pretty much sole exception of MeFi).

At the same time I'm getting very frustrated with the limits of the tools I do know how to use - Java's verbosity and lack of support for first-class functions is a pain, and I don't like the fact that I'm always the last to hear about everything interesting that happens on the net. I have no coherent systems for making notes or keeping track of appointments or tasks, despite the plethora of Mac programs available for doing just that.

Why is this a problem? Well, I'm not even thirty yet, but I can already feel myself falling behind the times. I don't want to end up as the kind of programmer / person in general who toils away on some legacy project in a little corner, insisting "we've always done it this way" until one day I get fired for being completely superfluous. I want to want to learn new things. I want to be more organised.

So is there a question in all of this? Yes! I want you to tell me how to break out of my rut. Tell me how I can learn about, and start to use, new stuff, despite the two big obstacles I'm about to describe.

Obstacle number one: Why do I dislike new things? To a large part, to be honest, because the people who do use these things and try to promote them really grate on my nerves. Take programming languages: many advocates of new languages (Ruby, I'm looking at you) start off their pitch by pointing out how useless language X (also known as "Java") is, and how using their language allows you to become a massively more enlightened individual. Along the way, there is a strong implication that anyone who still uses language X in 2008 is a hopeless dinosaur. Way to insult your audience.

Number two: I find learning new things really unpleasant. Faced with needing to code a small website, another programmer would say "Cool, a chance to try out this new Python framework, and this AJAX front-end library - no one's ever tried using them together before, but I have a really clever plan involving metaclasses". I say "Well, I don't really want to take too much time on it, so let's code it up in imperative-style PHP 4. It's clunky, it's incredibly verbose, the code is hideous, and errors are hard to track down, but I know how it works and can liberally reuse code from previous projects." Of course, this is a caricature, but the point remains that that other programmer will end up being more productive and motivated than me, perhaps not on this project, but on the next, where I'm still using PHP 4, but the other guy would be using said Python framework (but not the AJAX library, because it turned out to be too buggy).

So why don't I go off and do like the other programmer? Because the framework and the library will have terrible, hard-to-find inconsistent documentatio, bugs that cause the default configuration to fail silently, and creators who have the attitude described in obstacle #1. And here's the crux of the matter: where the other programmer would think "Cool, a challenge! Let's try to get this working." I fly into an impotent rage, cursing the code, its creator, and myself. I will yell at the computer when yet another promising documentation link 404s on me, I will make strangling motions at the screen when it turns out that I installed some package whose name has no vowels on the wrong path, and I will mentally tally every single problem I've had getting the whole thing working. Both the other programmer and I will take about five hours to get the framework up and running, but while that's five hours of joyful problem-solving time for the other guy/gal, it's five hours of fuming at the computer for me, and I'll have a headache at the end. And somewhere along the way I will probably give up and code the thing in PHP 4 or Java, feeling guilty for being a dinosaur.

Much the same happens when the Thing in question isn't a programming language but a website or some organizer/productivity program.

So to the end of not having to look at new things anymore, I now come up with automatic put-downs for every new thing that crosses my path: Ruby's syntax is horrible, Twitter is shallow, XML is verbose, Python is white-space-sensitive, LISP is unreadable, Quicksilver is unstable and obtuse, GTD is for obsessive-compulsives, podcasts are narcissistic, RSS is inefficent and ill-defined and life hacks are impractical. Contributing to wikis is pointless, and all forums are full of 13 year olds.

Still, I want to learn and use new things, because I find them fascinating and recognise their potential. So what techniques, states of mind, resources would you suggest that I could use to approach learning new languages, starting to use new websites, new modes of communication, etcetera, without just coming away pissed off and exhausted?

(And if you've read all of this, congratulations. You get a voucher for small prize, redeemable anywhere on the moon only.)

HomeDecorFilter: How can I dye some curtains to very closely match my new walls?

littlerobothead — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:05:12 -0800

HomeDecorFilter: How can I dye some curtains to very closely match my new walls? I've recently began to paint my office a most excellent shade of apple green, not unlike the one seen here. My wife and I have been trying to find ideas for window treatments, and I think we want to do curtains—but white seems boring. Can I get Lowes to give me some of the pigment they used in the paint, and use it to dye some white tab top curtains? If that won't work, how the heck do I get curtains that will very closely match the walls, and is this even a good idea? The walls are apple green and all the trim is a nice, semi-gloss white. Realize this is more subjective than many questions that get asked here, but I need the hivemind's opinions!

How do I make myself want to go to bed earlier?

dyslexictraveler — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:38:38 -0800

What techniques can I use to help motivate myself to go to bed earlier? Remember that old Jerry Seinfeld bit about How “late night guy” always wants to stay up late, but “morning guy” always feels exhausted (and hates late night guy)? That’s me in a nutshell. I don’t get enough sleep, and now that I’m out of college I really have no excuses. My problem is, each evening, I just don’t feel much of a desire to go to bed. Consequently, night after night, I stay up just a little too late, and by the end of the week I’m completely exhausted.

What tricks should I use to help change my habits? Is there anything I can do to help make myself want to go to bed at an earlier hour?

Extra special bonus question: due to my work/volunteer schedule, one night a week I don’t get home until at least 11:45 pm, which means I’ve been away from my apartment for more than 15 hours. On these nights, I find it very hard to go to bed quickly after getting home. I feel a strong desire to spend time unwinding first, and that frequently means I don’t end up going to bed until 1:30 or 2 on those nights. Any suggestions on how to get from “just got home after a very long day” mode, to “it’s time to go to bed” mode more efficiently, would be greatly appreciated.

Brilliant recurring calendar events?

electric_counterpoint — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:44:40 -0800

What brilliant recurring events have you set up on your calendar app? So I was thinking, as my reminder went off a few days ago signaling that it was time to recalibrate my Macbook's battery, that there are probably a lot of little "life maintenance" things I should be remembering to do on a regular schedule. Immediately, I set to compiling a list of important things that I wouldn't normally think/remember to do, but that would Enrich My Life in some way.

I got one item — "Replace alarm clock battery every year" — down before I decided to just decided to ask MeFi instead.

So? The lifehack-ier the better!

Lifeplanning

Knigel — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:55:07 -0800

What can you suggest for long term life planning? I would like to set up something like a time line for my life and goals. I want to manage what I will do in 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, etc. Does anyone know of any useful software or other things I could do manually? I want to be able to adjust things as needed and see where I've been. I appreciate your help.

Freedom! Horrible freedom!

ajp — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:01:19 -0800

How do I automate the mundane aspects my life? So far, I've got a few things that keep the mundane parts of my life ticking over nicely, without my having to think about them too much, if at all. Some examples:

1. Like many people, I have a checking account (for paying rent, bills, etc), a savings account, and a spending account. Regular automated debits from the checking account enter my savings and spendings accounts. When I use an ATM, I use my spending account card, and I can see exactly how much cash I have for the month. I usually keep my cash allowance for the week in my wallet. Most of my bills and rent are direct debit, and I track shared payments with IOweYou.co.uk. Consequently, I have very little thinking to do in terms of personal finance (as long as I keep things simple).

2. Any and every appointment or reminder goes into my phone's calendar. My phone then reminds me of meetings, birthdays, etc.

3. I cycle whenever I can. This means I don't have to think about scheduling specific time for basic keep-fit exercise.

4. I'm doing a college course. Currently I carry around a set of flash cards wherever I go, so I get to do some useful revision in the "dead time" spent sitting on the bus. (Before the college course, it was a book of sudoku puzzles).

What other similar things do people do? I'm not looking for a "framework" like GTD or tickler files; I'm looking for specific examples of processes that run themselves, or habits that people introduce that allow them to make the most of their day.

I'm sure this question will have been asked here before, but I only managed to find details of implementing tickler files, GTD, and so on.

Please help me with my struggle between materialism and minimalism.

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:58:50 -0800

This is not about me mistakingly thinking material possessions = happiness. (I don't.) And it's not about me running up credit card debt because of impulse shopping. (I haven't.) This is about my competing urges: materialism and minimalism. Mostly I try to pair down my belongings and live on less. But I never feel like I've paired down enough. I feel greedy for even having the stuff I have. But there's another part of me that does want that 46" Sony flat screen tv. That Pottery Barn sofa. That trendy $30 t-shirt that should really cost $3. These competing urges have rendered me unable to enjoy any purchase I make or don't make.

An example:

Recently, my computer broke and I had to buy a new one. I ended up getting a 20" Apple Imac. There's a part of me that feels guilty: Did I really need the 20"? No. Couldn't I have been happy with the 17"? I suppose. After traveling overseas and seeing people living in abject poverty, I feel guilty. I feel horrible, actually-- for the poor, for the starving, even for the workers in the Chinese factories earning pennies an hour to make me a stupid Imac. But how much can I do to help them? Don't I need some things to enjoy life a little?

But there's another part that secretly craves the bigger 24" Imac. So much screen real estate! So big and shiny! I know it wouldn't make me happier, wouldn't really change my life all that much but I still want it. I crave it! I secretly wish I'd bought it.

Is this normal?
How does one find a middle ground?
How do I find serenity from these two urges?

Songs To Kill Procrastination

pipstar — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:29:30 -0800

MotivationFilter, MusicFilter: What particular songs motivate you? This is my year for finally putting cool ideas into action and I was hoping to gather a playlist of good, procrastination killing songs that will help me to start and keep motivated.

I already have a lot of music that is enjoyable to work to (once I've actually started) and which helps to maintain flow, so what I'd like are indie, punk, pop, folk, any genre songs which inspire me to do the "starting".

Hidden amongst the responses to this old Ask MeFi post about motivation was a link to the lyrics of Little Acorns by The White Stripes. If you're familiar with the track you'll know that there's a voiceover introducing the concept of "Take all your problems // And rip 'em apart". And every time I listen to the song now, I remind myself to take that advice.

So, what tracks can you suggest?

Book ID: algorithms for your life?

rwhe — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 18:11:36 -0800

Book ID: I'm looking for a specific self-help book circa 2004, full of step-by-step algorithms for everyday life tasks, such as applying for a job, getting satisfaction when you buy a defective product, finding a good doctor, and so on. I need the author and the title. Thanks!

Help me reclaim my door knobs for their intended use.

moonshine — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:14:06 -0800

Do you have a good way of storing your bags, totes and/or purses? Right now I have more than a couple of bags (6, to be exact) that are hanging off of all available door knobs. I don't have a lot of room for storage which is why they got relegated to door knobs, but I don't like this because it looks kind of messy. Oh yeah, and it makes it hard to turn the door knob. heh

I know someone who bought a canvas hanging-shelves contraption and stores one bag per shelf, which they say works well, but unfortunately I don't have the closet space.

Does someone here have an ingenious method for storing their bags? Thanks in advance.

How do I become less materialistic? Should I become a luddite?

4ster — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 20:13:25 -0800

The things I own end up owning me. Should I become a luddite? I am thirty-five and have a wonderful life. I have been married for eight years to a wonderful woman who I have known as a friend for 17 years. I have a beautiful, charming, and brilliant daughter. I am successful, appreciated, and in demand in my field. I am well-compensated for the work that I do. I am in great health.

I really have everything. Yet I feel like I am sleepwalking through life. Despite all that I have and all of the opportunities before me, I feel like I am pissing away too much of my life.

I spend way, way, too much time reading Treo-related and other tech-related forums, browsing geekware online, in tech-related irc channels. I spend too much time and too much money on stuff I don't need. I check e-mail too much. I think about work when I am with my family.

I am really considering giving away everything I don't truly need (clothing, computer crap, books I'll never read, etc.) . I want to sell the Treo and go to pen, paper, and a cheap phone so I am not tempted to obsess over it all the time (and so I have an excuse to use Thunderbird). I am one of those people you read about in the forums who owns an embarassing amount of accessories for their PDA, and I hate it.

Years ago, I decided that I never want to own a car that I care so much about that I can't clean the snow off of it with a broom. I want to apply this mantra to my whole life. My fear is that I will divest of all of this stuff, freak out, start buying more junk, and be right back where I started.

Has anyone else struggled with the kind of screwed up priorities that come from being too obsessed with "stuff" and worked through it? How did you do it? What would you do differently?

I am a committed Christian, so I have a good framework for this (do not store up treasures for yourselves where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal...") but man, I am really struggling with implementing it in my life.

Anyone who has made it this far, thank you so much for reading it. This has been pretty hard to admit to myself. Anyone who wants to be my personal Tyler Durden, I thank you as well.

Help me manage my life (i.e. my calendar)

special-k — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:41:29 -0800

I add appointments to my calendar at work (desktop) and home (laptop) but miss appointments because I am at the wrong computer or away from both. Help me stay synchronized. I have a nice powerful desktop at work where I add appointments (from phone calls and emails). I also make appointments with people (face to face) on my moleskine which I then enter onto my laptop (if I dont return to the office the same day/next few days). How do I keep both calendars synchronized?

I run Windows XP on both with Mozilla Sunbird as my calendar (I can switch to Outlook if that would make things better). Is there a tool (or service) that will automatically keep both calendars synchronized? I have tried synching with Yahoo! but that didn’t work because I could never always remember to sync before leaving work/home.

In a nutshell, I need a service that
a) Can keep both calendars synched automatically (both computers are always online so some software that runs whenever an appt. is added or deleted would be ideal)
b) Lets me add appointments via the web (when I am away from both computers. This is not critical)
c) Is free (I cannot afford to pay a lot of money for any service).
d) bonus if it can sms my cellphone for select appointments
I have searched askmefi for this (no answers to this kind of question) and a service called Trumba looks like it would work but is too expensive.

Any ideas that might work for me?

Advice for clearing literary clutter

matildaben — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 11:27:21 -0800

Suggest practical and creative systems for reducing the number of books I own (rather long exposition inside). Hopefully this is part 1 of an ongoing decluttering and stuff-organizing project. I am really feeling more motivated to get rid of more stuff nowadays. I've read a lot of the decluttering threads and my issue is very specific and practical, and hopefully does not require therapy.

The vast majority of my possessions by weight and volume consists of books. I would like to develop a system for getting rid of them that will have a very practical, behavioral, methodical approach to the emotions that compel me to keep them.

One category of books is the ones I haven't read yet. This is pretty large. One thought that I had for dealing with them in a mostly scientific way was to arrange them in piles according to a 1-5 assessment of how likely I would be to read them (forcing myself to answer honestly for each one), and keep only the 5's. If there's still too many 5's left, I might break it down further by asking myself what my reasoning is for why I might want to read it (e.g., would I learn something valuable, keep up with a favorite author, be entertained, etc.). For partially read books, the question would be similar, "how likely am I to finish this?" So, I pretty much have a system for this category, and mainly am interested in hearing about similar strategies that have worked for you, or refinements or gotchas to this system. For instance, how does one estimate likeliness to read? What sort of questions does one ask oneself about motivation to read a yet unread book?

Books that I have read break down into several categories. The first is books that I have kept just because I enjoyed them when I read them, will probably never read them again, but they gave me pleasure so I keep the book around to honor that. Again, here, I think reason and logic can prevail if I just put them in a pile and say "I honor how much I enjoyed you when I read you" and then let them go. But that will probably be more painful than it sounds. For this category, advice, strategies, tales of similar efforts, and gotchas are welcome.

Books that I have read and may read again are a much smaller category, and once I have determined which ones those are, I can probably use a similar system as with the unread books to weed them out.

Then there is the large, amorphous category of books I hold on to for some sentimental reason - I read them in a great college class, I know the author, etc. I don't want to be too brutal here and rule them out completely merely because they are sentimental tokens - I want some kind of clarity on what questions to ask myself to determine which ones have a meaningful enough sentiment to hold onto and which ones are just emotional baggage. This is probably the toughest category, and the one where I'd probably benefit the most from hearing about "hacks" that have worked successfully for other people who operate in a similar fashion.

Hacking your jog

grrarrgh00 — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 05:46:45 -0800

How do you optimize your jog? I run about 3.5 miles, 3 or 4 mornings a week, just after waking. I'm not really a newbie; I've been running for a little more than a year. But I haven't yet figured out what variables I can control to produce a consistently excellent run. Sometimes, I breeze through the run speedy and smiling, and sometimes (like this morning), I get stitches, I'm out of breath, my leg hurts, my feet get blisters.

I used to run on pavement with shoes too small to account for the widening of my feet during the jog, and my toes are still trying to recover. The trail I run on now is nice, soft gravel. With the consultation of the fellow at Running Room, I've got a pair of good winter running shoes (Nike Air Max Motos) a full size larger than my normal shoe size.

I can be bad about hydrating sometimes, but this morning I had a full 12 oz. of sparkling water and gave it time to settle before going out. I can also rush through my stretching beforehand.

What stretches, changes in diet, changes in environment or other variables can I alter to make the jog awesome every time? And what are your favorite resources (blogs, books, magazines) for learning more?

this question is del.icio.us

mhaw — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 09:12:21 -0800

I'm looking for interesting uses of del.icio.us, how do you use it? what are some cool hacks? how do you organize your links? interesting tags? other uses?

Tips and Tricks for Living With Roommates

bonheur — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 13:09:20 -0800

I live with three roommates in a large apartment, and we need a system to help us split the chores and get along. What techniques have you used to make sure everyone pulls their own weight in a roommate situation? How do you make sure the trash gets out and the rent gets paid and everyone gets along? Right now we have no system, and people just clean when they feel like it, but that seems to lead inevitably to one person doing the lion's share of the chores, and then that person starts to resent being the house maid, and the other people start to resent being nagged to take the trash out, etc. etc. Advice? Tips? Tricks? How can we make communal living work?

Searching for blog post about 43Folders/Lifehacks

idontlikewords — Mon, 23 May 2005 21:33:56 -0800

I've been Googling fruitlessly for a good half-hour here, in search of a post I recall from a year or so ago, on the topic of Getting Things Done / 43Folders / LifeHacks I'm pretty sure that it was on MeFi, Boingboing, or possibly Gaping Void (but I could be wrong) and it was sort of a personal recollection about the author's experience with "two kinds of people" in college, those who could cook up all sorts of great ideas, but lacked the focus to put them into practice, and those who were driven, but maybe didn't have as many fresh ideas. The creative types were more likely to get high, cram at the last minute and etc. and the main obstacle to their being able to focus was that it was just not interesting. So the author of this post suggested that by looking at organizational methods and so on as another opportunity to create and apply new ideas, these types of people could, in effect, outwit their own lack of focus. Obviously the texts referenced were 43Folders, Getting Things Done, and the like, but if possible, I'd really like to find this personal reflection type post that I've described here!

What are your (especially non-obvious and/or free) life hacks?

mecran01 — Sat, 08 May 2004 06:29:39 -0800

Danny O'Brien's bid for an O'Reilly book deal, Life Hacks (more here is a list of "Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks." There's lots of text-editor usage to track tasks, little scripts, and all kinds of nifty thingies.

What are your life hacks? You get extra points if they are non-obvious and incorporate free software. Best hack gets a prize

The private blog -- a secret blog, using a tool:

Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal: 8 entries every 10 min are
private. Closed off from everyone.

Announce stuff is moving into RSS -- email announcements to
something that syndicates over RSS

And yes, I realize that ask.metafilter is kinda one giant answer to this question. Sorry the post is so mis-formatted. When I hit "back" to edit it, the text didn't magically reappear in the browser form.