I love life hacks.

What are "life hacks?" Well, according to Wikipedia:

Life hacking refers to any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life. It is arguably a modern appropriation of cutting the Gordian Knot- in other words, anything that solves an everyday problem in an inspired, ingenious manner.

 

The term is primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming.

 

The terms hackhacking, and hacker have a long history of ambiguity in the computing and geek communities, particularly within the free and open source software crowds.

 

There. Got all that? Breaking it down a little more, life hacks are cool ideas for simplifying everyday tasks. It's really that simple.

Here's a great example in less than 30 seconds:

You get the idea. A few more that you could possibly use:

However...in the unlit corners of the internet, you might get some bad ideas masquerading as life hacks.

Our friend John Green at Mentalfloss has taken some time to do a bit of debunking:

Oh, and as far as the "peel a hard-boiled egg in a glass" life hack, it's been pointed out that you really need to overcook the egg to keep it from flying to pieces in your glass. Not such a useful hack after all, I guess.

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