Tips for Adulthood: Five Great Lifehacking Websites

Every Wednesday I offer tips for adulthood.

Yesterday I fessed up to not being a lifehacker. But just because I don’t employ many lifehacks in my own life except, perhaps, accidentally (hmmm…”The Accidental Lifehacker” – perhaps that should be the title of my memoir…), this doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the beautiful simplicity of short cuts for daily life.

So today, in honor of all my lifehack-loving friends out there – including, and especially, my lovely husband – here are five great lifehacking websites:

1. Lifehacker. This eponymous lifehack website is mostly geared towards downloads that fuel productivity. But lest you think it is only for computer nerds, there’s something for everyone on Lifehacker. Given my sleep issues, I was particularly drawn to this post on how to improve your sleep posture.

2. Zen Habits. Here’s another lifehacking site focused on – as the sub-title has it – “simple productivity.” So, for example, here’s a post about “executing your to do list” (Sub-title: why writing it doesn’t actually get it done). Egads! But it’s all about the crossing off…I mean isn’t it? I sometimes write things down after I’ve done them just to experience the thrill of crossing them off the dreaded to-do list! Clearly, I need to spend some more time here.

3. Dumb Little Man. This website offers “tips for life” that run the gamut from personal finance to self-development to improving your productivity. In light of my new-found enthusiasm for physical therapy, I was quite taken with this post on how to improve your hunched over PC posture. (You mean leaning in further, typing faster and more furiously, and telling yourself that you’ll stretch in the next half hour – but then never managing to actually do it – isn’t the way forward?) Insider Tip: My husband has a “stretch shoulders” alert on his computer that reminds him to stretch once an hour.

4. Write to Done. Started by Leo Baubuta – creator of Zen Habits – it provides productivity tips to writers of all kinds. It also features a lot of guest posts, which makes it feel like a real writing community. As a sometime fiction writer, I really liked this post on how to let loose with your story telling.

5. The Happiness Project. Penned by my old pal Gretchen Rubin, this blog narrates the author’s journey through a year of learning what makes people happy by “trying on” advice, bromides and strategies from Aristotle to Oprah. But every Wednesday, Gretchen also offers happiness tips. Some of my favorites have been her tips on parenting, including this post about “Seven Tips to Defuse a Tantrum” and this post about “Five Tips for Getting a Little Kid to Take No for an Answer.”

OK. I must admit that after that brief stroll  through lifehacker-land, I’m beginning to see why these sorts of things are so addictive…but can a zebra really change its stripes?

Image: To Do List by Ebby via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.

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