19 Everyday Life Hacks People Swear By That Others Still Miss
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A few life hacks can help you navigate the day smoothly. They make general routines much easier and quicker. Most people use life hacks to save time, reduce stress, and boost productivity. Some still miss these useful time-saving tricks.
Psychologist Dr. Susan David advises that small changes can lead to big mindsets and productivity shifts. Read on to discover 19 daily life hacks everyone’s missing.
Keep Your Cables Organized with Binder Clips
Cables can become easily tangled and a menace. Use binder clips to keep your cables under control. Clip them to the edge of your desk and string them through the metal loops.
This keeps them organized and staying caught up when not in use.
Freeze Grapes as Ice Cubes
This tip will instantly raise your sipping game: freeze your grapes and drop them into your wine to cool it without watering it down.
Grapes have an 81 percent water content, close to that of ice, yet they do nothing to spoil the drink’s taste. They even add a touch of sweetness as they thaw.
Use a Wooden Spoon to Prevent Boiling Over
Put a wooden spoon over the top of your pot to prevent it from boiling over. The bubbles will burst when they hit the spoon.
This will keep your stove mess-free.
Dental Floss for Cutting Soft Foods
Believe it or not, dental floss is your kitchen’s secret weapon, but make sure it’s unflavored. Dental floss cuts soft, sticky, or fragile foods because it is very fine, thin, and strong.
Waxed dental floss makes neat cuts through sticky foods such as cheesecake, grilled cheese, or roulade, with little mess and clean edges. Using dental floss to cut can avoid food waste.
Wrangle Your Keys with Colorful Nail Polish
Never fumble around for the right key again. Use different nail polish colors to color-code your keys.
It’s obvious at a glance which is for home, the car, or the office.
Ice Cube Tray for Jewelry Organization
Losing jewelry is a very common mishap, and tangled ones are quite a nuisance. Store your rings, earrings and other small jewelry, pieces in an ice cube tray.
It’s cheap, keeps them separate, and means they are always to hand, not tangled or lost.
Shower Caps for Shoe Covers
Put a shower cap around the bottom of dirty, muddy shoes when packing a suitcase, to prevent the soles from touching the tops of clean clothes.
The band secures all these items into one neat loop. The mesh means the cap is also good for squishing up an item of clothing, such as a wet or muddy pair of shoes until you can clean them.
Microwave Citrus Fruit for More Juice
Citrus fruit should be rolled on the counter before being microwaved for 15-20 seconds. The heat will break down the cell walls and make squeezing that extra ounce of juice from the fruit easier.
No more struggling with a fork or reaming tool.
Store Bed Sheets in Pillowcases
It’s difficult to find matching sheets in a jam-packed linen closet. To solve this, tuck a full bed sheet set inside one of its pillowcases.
This way, you’re always assured a complete set ready to go. This will also save you time, as everything in it will be in front of you, rather than hunting around like a blind mole.
Velcro Strips for Remote Controls
To prevent your remote controls from getting lost and constantly falling between cushions, buy some Velcro. Stick a tiny piece to the back of each remote and another to the side of your TV stand.
This way, you’ll always know where they are and keep them from disappearing.
Microwave Sponge to Disinfect
Your kitchen sponge may contain more bacteria than a toilet seat. According to a paper published this year in the journal Scientific Reports, as many as 82 billion bacteria can live on a single cubic inch of sponge.
Thankfully, according to the USDA, there’s an easy way to zap most of these microbes: microwave your moist sponge for 60 seconds, and its bacterial load can be reduced by as much as 99 percent.
Shirt Folding Board from Cardboard
You’re always awestruck when you see professional clothes folding at a retail store, wishing you could do something similar at home. Make your own shirt folding board out of a piece of cardboard.
It will propel you through the labor of folding shirts, and before you know it, your drawer will be stacked to perfection. This hack will change your laundry life.
Use a Paper Clip to Hold a Zipper Up
Do not despair if your favorite garment has a broken zipper. A paper clip is a good temporary fix for a zipper that won’t stay up.
Poke the paper clip through the bottom of the zipper, pull it, and snag it on the pant button after you zip up; it will keep your pants up until you get them properly repaired.
Tape Measure Hook for Hanging Pictures
Picture hanging requires skill; you want to be sure you are nicely level and without crookedness. Use the hook on the end of your tape measure as a guide.
Hang the hook where you want the picture and sit the bottom of the frame on it as you mark the spot for the nail. This will give you straight, evenly-spaced pictures every time.
Baking Soda to Freshen Up Shoes
This kitchen cabinet secret ingredient deodorizer is truly no-nonsense and will work wonders on those stinky shoes. Baking soda is a natural odor neutralizer because it is an alkali, which neutralizes odors by lowering pH.
The reason why, according to the housekeeping guru Martha Stewart, is that it’s made up of two completely opposite chemical components that together make a great neutralizer of bad odors as well as a moisture reducer. Sprinkle a little baking soda inside your shoes to get rid of odors. Leave it overnight and shake it out the next morning for footwear.
Use a Hair Straightener to Iron Collars
Sometimes, you’re running late, and your collar shows some creases, making fun of your neatness. Good Housekeeping recommends using a flat iron on low heat to get an instant smooth ironed effect, saving you time.
It’s also small enough to fit in your bag, so you can de-wrinkle at a moment’s notice. To check wrinkles without dangerously heating delicate fabrics, try placing a light cloth between the flat iron and your garment.
Magnetic Strip for Bobby Pins
A survey by Pixie revealed that Americans can spend 2.5 days a year looking for lost objects. Bobby pins are the worst for disappearing. A magnet will ensure that your bobby pins are at hand when needed, saving you precious minutes every morning.
Store bobby pins and similarly sized metal items, such as paper clips, with a magnetic strip that can be mounted inside a drawer or on your wall.
Rubber Gloves to Remove Pet Hair
The American Pet Products Association reports that 66 percent of US homes have pets; that is, 86.9 million families facing this hairy headache. RCI (Rubber Cement Inc.) recommends using a rubber glove to remove pet hair from an upholstered sofa.
The dampening of rubber gloves and sweeping over upholstery can turn them into fur magnets. Such quick, cheap hacks turn the dirty chore of tasking into the pleasures of instant gratification.
Old Newspaper for Cleaning Windows
Using recycled paper as cleaning cloths is efficient and eco-friendly. For instance, try using yesterday’s newspaper rather than paper towels to clean windows.
The paper leaves a streak-free shine and doesn’t leave behind lint.
Disclaimer – This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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