The 90 Best Lifehacks of 2009: The Year in Review Another year is winding down, and that means it’s time to take a look back at what we’ve done here at Lifehack over the last 12 months. 2009 was a scary year for a lot of people – corporate layoffs, a shaky global economy, stunningly vicious politics, old wars grinding on and new ones flaring up. In the midst of all this, though, many saw opportunities; with the myth of life-long corporate employment shattered as some of the world’s biggest companies teetered on the brink of collapse, entrepreneurship enjoyed a major resurgence. This rise in self-reliance extends beyond our work life, too – people are embracing a do-it-yourself, person-to-person lifestyle where status and the display of wealth matter much less than authenticity and social interaction. All of this is reflected in the posts that went up on this site over the last year. What emerges from all this is a treasure trove of good advice, ranging from the lofty and idealistic to the immediately practical. Software and Technology
The Bottom-line Bookclub The 80 Best Lifehacks of 2008 And so we arrive yet again at the end of another year. 2008 was at best a mixed bag – while the world was electrified by the US election and it’s promise of change, the global economy was shaken to its core as a decade of financial mismanagement and willful blindness finally caught up with us. Gas prices spiked, leading us all to ask some difficult questions about sustainability, efficiency, and consumption – and then plummeted, leaving us feeling somewhat relieved, but baffled by the unpredictability of it all. As we roll into 2009, there is an atmosphere of suspenseful anticipation, of hope mixed with not a little uncertainty. Companies are streamlining to prepare for the worst, even as entrepreneurs look ahead to new opportunities. Here at Lifehack, we’ve always followed a path of cautious optimism. Here, then, are the best posts of 2008, selected according to their popularity and the amount of discussion they generated both here on the site and across the blogosphere. Communication
50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do Self-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, a jack of all trades is far more equipped to deal with life than a specialized master of only one. While not totally comprehensive , here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Check out these books for more ideas on pertinent life skills:
Start Every Day as a Producer, Not a Consumer I have to agree that my most productive days are those where I don't allow myself to read the news, check e-mail, facebook, etc., right after I get up. However, that happens because I've got a ton of stuff to get done, and the outside world takes a back seat until my workload is under control. However, there are certain biological necessities that have to happen before I can be productive. I also *have* to check my e-mail, because if something blew up overnight or there's something that needs to be dealt with ASAP, I need to know as early as possible. Flagged 29 Semi-Productive Things I Do Online When I’m Trying to Avoid R You don’t always have to work hard to be productive. Productivity can simply be the side effect of doing the right things. So here’s a list of 29 semi-productive things I do online when my mind is set on avoiding ‘real work.’ Check delicious popular tags like ‘useful,’ ‘tutorials,’ ‘tips,’ ‘howto,’ ‘advice,’ ‘entrepreneurship,’ etc. for interesting, educational articles to read.Watch one of the thousands of educational videos streaming at TED.com, Academic Earth and Teacher Tube.Read an online book list and find a new book to grab next time I’m at the library. Here’s another list. Oh, and ever since I bought my new (super sexy) Apple iPad , I’ve been enjoying all of these sites on the go and catching looks from almost everyone who passes me while I browse. So what kind of semi-productive things do you do online in your off-time? Photo by: Colorblind Picaso Party Casino Related 30 Life-Enhancing Things You Can Do in 30 Minutes or Less April 19, 2012 In "Happiness" We're all way too busy.
Polyphasic Sleep: Facts and Myths Contents The law of accelerating returns We live in the times of accelerating acceleration. The Moore's Law makes the world smaller, faster, more connected and more efficient. At the same time, the myth-making power of the human mind is now grotesquely amplified by the all-mighty Internet. Around the year 2000, a new meme cropped up in several blogs on the net: The Uberman's Sleep Schedule. The Uberman's Sleep Schedule The idea behind the Uberman's Sleep Schedule is to gain waking hours by sleeping the total of just 3 hours in 6 portions distributed equally throughout the day. The Uberman's Sleep Schedule was proposed in this blog at Everything2. Polyphasic sleep More and more frequently, Uberman's Sleep Schedule was being referred to as polyphasic sleep (the term popularized by research and book by an Italian chronobiologist Dr. Polyphasic sleep is known to sleep researchers as a variant of a sleep pattern that is set in opposition to monophasic sleep. Compression of sleep stages
Life's Instructions » Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh!t Thom Byxbe is Publisher and Editor of Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh!t He is based in Southwest Detroit, MI, and is a Knowledge Evangelist, Futurist, National Speaker, Author, Entrepreneur, Coach and Expert Blogger. Thom has been a respected author for over 15 years. He has written extensively on the Internet, Technology and Lifestyle topics. Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh! If you have suggestions, comments or would like to submit recommendations for articles to appear in Concepts, Ideas, Thoughts & Bullsh!
How to Do a Proper Self-Review and Identify Your Professional Pain Points (Before Your Boss Does) SExpand It's the end of the year, which means it's performance review season for many of you at work. Ideally, there should be no surprises in your review, but we've all thought that before. Self-reviews are usually the worst part of performance review season. In this post, we'll walk you through doing a real, private self-review, identifying your professional pain points and irritations, and then coming up with solutions that you can bring to the table when you meet with your boss. Step One: Write Down What You Do, What Others Think You Do, and What You Should Be DoingP The first thing you need to do is get clear on what it is you actually do every day, and compare that with what your job description says you do. Once you have a good complete picture of all of the things you do at work, make a separate list of the things that are actually part of your job as advertised. Step Two: Review Yourself from Your and Your Boss's PerspectivesP Do I know what is expected of me at work?
The Glee Club My first assignment was the gratitude visit. It goes like this: Pick a person in your life whom you'd like to thank, someone who has meant a lot to you. Write this person a letter. After you've written it, call the person and ask to visit. Read the letter aloud when you are face to face. Whom to thank? I shared my fears with Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and the man who had in effect given me the assignment. Tasks such as the gratitude visit were first introduced in Seligman's popular book Authentic Happiness , in which he outlines positive psychology , a movement he founded in the late 1990s. Positive psychology focuses on cultivating personality strengths and honing an optimistic approach to life rather than on cataloging human frailty and disease, which Seligman says has too long been the focus of psychology. If you want to learn to be a happier person, only a relatively small body of knowledge exists to help you, Seligman says.
Tips, Tools, & Tinkering: 110 Years of <em>Popular Mechanics</em> DIY In one of our very first issues, back in 1902, we told the story of an Illinois schoolboy named Mark Richards, who built an automobile for himself. By saving money from his after-school job blacking stoves, Richards cobbled together enough parts to assemble a runabout that rolled on four skinny tires and was powered by a single-cylinder engine. "I had no knowledge of the principles and practice of gasoline engine construction," Richards said, "yet I not only managed to make it but to build the transmission mechanism, friction clutch, spark-timing mechanism, body running gear, etc., even doing the necessary blacksmithing... I stuck to the job and am gratified with the result." If Mark Richards were alive today, he would love the story of Bob Dullam, a sculptor in Kalamazoo, Mich., who received one of our 2009 Backyard Genius Awards for building a replica of the Tumbler Batmobile. To guide the masses, the early issues of Popular Mechanics were aimed at the initiated.