Want to learn some quick and easy life hacks that are easy to do, low cost, and save you time? You’re in luck. We have collected many of these practical life hacks into this one list that is easy to digest. By tweaking little things, it can make your life much easier.
There are always these pesky little obstacles in life that make everything so difficult – pot always boiling over, zipper constantly unzipping itself, or ice cream melting on your clothes. All these first-world problems can easily ruin your day. Luckily, the internet is full of handy life-saving tips that can help you!
This awesome list of life hacks will teach you how to make your beer cold quickly, hammer nails without hurting yourself, keep your greedy colleagues away from your lunch, cover up dings on wooden furniture, keep your take-out pizza warm, and much more!
Avoid distractions at all costs
…is an increase in your productivity with a magnitude of at least 5x-10x.
A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that “the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks, on average, every three minutes and five seconds.”
3 minutes and 5 seconds. That’s 185 seconds in total between one interruption and the next.
What’s more, “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.”
23 minutes! That’s over seven times as long as it takes for you to be interrupted again.
The life hacks … finding vs. making your place
Some people seem to find their place in the world naturally. As kids’ “talents” become apparent, they get good at their talents. They study the train and ultimately get a great job or start a company doing their thing. If this is you, congratulations. And you don’t need to read this post.
But if you, like me, grew up on the island of misfit toys, you might want to keep reading. Those of us, who can’t find our place in the world, have to make our place in the world.
Position yourself or be positioned
When companies do this, it’s called “category design.” It’s a management discipline that helps companies create more than a new product, but a whole new market category. Historically, the innovators who successfully design a new product, company, and category are the big winners.
Category design on the personal level is about making your place in the world — connecting what makes you unique to a problem people care about and then positioning you as the solution.
The life hacks … solving critical problems
New categories emerge when a new problem gets defined (Henry Ford with “horseless carriage”), or an existing problem gets re-imagined (Travis Kalanick Uber founder with “smartphone-powered, personal transportation”).
The bigger and more urgent the problem, the more time and money people will put into solving it. Becoming a category king in many ways is a function of becoming known for solving a problem that matters.
Knowing how to develop your point of view
Here’s where you put yourself under the microscope, figure out who you are, and develop your story. Putting yourself through a POV exercise can be incredibly clarifying. How do you define who you are and what you want to mean to the world? How do you want people to see you? How do you want to describe the problem you solve?
Write it down, perfect your story and hone it until it sounds like a tight, conversational, presentation — so that if you had two minutes to position yourself, you could go through your POV and anyone would “get” you.
Say “Thank you” instead of “Sorry”
Apologizing focuses on what you did wrong and makes you smaller. I.e., “Sorry I’m late.”
Instead, thank them. Ie. “Thank you for your patience.”
Everybody likes to be thanked, and you’re focusing your attention on them and how cool they are. Win-win.
If you want to get what you want, you’ll have to speak to the values and ideals of the group. Not your own.
Imagine being in a gang of thieves. They’re preparing to break into the house of an old lady. It’s easy money they said, but the idea of robbing the old lady makes you feel a little queasy, so you speak up:
She’s an old lady guy. Let’s leave her alone.
BZZZ. They’re going to look at you like you blowing wind. They didn’t care about why would they care now.
But if you said:
I doubt she has much money. It’s not even worth the work. If we’re going to break into a house might as well break into a big one.
Then you’ll look smart. It’s about understanding the group and what they value so you can propose the right decision for them (or at that’s what they think).
Surround yourself with good people
The people you spend the most time with have more of an impact on your life than almost anything else. Spend your precious time with people who make you feel better and do better.
Your life will be much better when you are surrounded by good people who have your best interests in mind. Many people underestimate the power of How the People Around You Affect Personal Success. Ditch the haters. Let go of people who bring you down or don’t believe in you.
Marry someone who brings out the best in you. Work with a manager who brings out your best work. Cultivate friendships that motivate you to have fun and try new things.
See the best in others
Surround yourself with good people, and then see the best in them. Don’t talk badly about people behind their back. It usually gets back to them, and will only make you feel worse.
Rather, compliment people on what you truly like about them. Speak well of others when they aren’t there. Give genuine compliments, and it will make you and them feel better.
What you see in others has more to do with you than with them. And how you talk about others, will reflect more of you, than it does on them. Especially in a work setting. People will trust you when you trust them.
Appreciate what is
Appreciate what is, rather than complaining about what “should be.” Do the best you can. And then give yourself a break. Celebrate your good luck and fortune.
Before you go to bed, think about the good things in your life, and show gratitude when someone helps you. Focus on giving one genuine “thank you” a day, and notice how much better you feel. Be gracious in success and defeat.
Dedicate yourself to continuous learning
I am a big believer in continuous learning. You should always seek to be flexible and keep several alternative paths in front of you. Always be on the lookout for ways to reinvent ways for self-improvement. Our most favored quote on continuous learning comes from Charles Darwin:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
All of these life lessons get better when you have a strong foundation in knowing how to be kind to others. I have never found a better way to stay happy. Kindness costs you nothing, and you’d be surprised how much it can do for your happiness.
Find something to make you laugh
Another important factor in your happiness is enjoying a good laugh as often as you can. Making fun of yourself and your mistakes is a great place to start.
Push goals
Everybody talks about goals. Everybody talks about SMART goals. Everybody talks about how to prioritize and organize your time and blah blah blah.
Push goals cut through a lot of this, and you can use them to solve many problems in your life at once.
A push goal is simply a goal like any other goal except it is strategically chosen to solve more than one goal at a time.
For example, let’s imagine you have a few goals: get more disciplined, make a new social circle, lose 15lbs, and get better sleep. Setting aside the fact that these aren’t SMART, they still are goals. You could try and tackle each of them individually, or you could pick one thing that would either capture the others or make pursuing them moot.
So, instead of coming up with a plan for all of them, you could simply join a martial arts class. Or join a running club and sign up for a half marathon. Or join a Crossfit gym and go to class regularly for two months. Each of these is likely to help you achieve the rest of your goals.
The bottom line
You see, we procrastinate a lot all the time, and we give ourselves excuses to accept those lame excuses.
This rule made me complete more tasks daily and without delay. And when you think about it, most of these tasks are so small that we consider them irrelevant to complete immediately. Thus, creating a super-low to-do list in the coming days or weeks.
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improve your continuous learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on mentoring from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
