Every 1% stacks up and after a while, all those 1%’s become a larger % of whatever it is you are doing. For me its time saving, manual labour reduction for chores or saving money. These little lifehacks will help across all three areas.
Lifehacks for Work
Work smarter, not harder.
ChatGPT: By now employers should be waking up to the fact that Chat GPT is here to stay and will help their workers get more done. How I suggest using this software (A.I) is by using it to start off your research and provide you the canvas to paint on. Once it gives you the first batch of outputs you can then decide to keep using it to focus the outputs in more or start using your brain to do the rest.
Chrome Extensions: These can help you reduce time spent doing things and help automate some of the tasks that you would normally be doing. There are chrome extensions for just about everything.
- Find the category you work in
- Look at the suggested extensions
- Open up the wider view if you need more options
- Bookmark the ones you like
- read the reviews, watch the demos and understand what it does
- Install it
Macros: Working on a mac there’s a neat little macro recorder built into your native apps section. You use it by recording several steps that you do every day and it will copy you. Let say I need to check a 3rd email inbox I have for whatever reason. The macro can record me opening that mailbox and sending my primary email the unopened emails as a recording each and every day.
There are a hundred thousand ways to use macros so have a think about what everyday manual tasks that you do and see if there’s a use case for macros to help you reduce time spent there.
Lifehacks for Finances
Credit Cards: If you need to use credit cards always use cards that have generous points systems. The more you spend the more you earn. It is a little bit of a trap but if you keep the points in your mind after 3-6 months depending on how you spend you should be able to claim back some cool stuff with your points. This includes free flights or hotel rooms.
Loyalty Points: These are legit the easy way to free stuff. Every brand wants you to come back, they give you discounts deals and rewards for shopping with them. You can make a lot of savings by paying attention to the different loyalty programs out there. You can also take it up a notch and reach out to the brand or company managing the program and try to negotiate better deals to keep shopping there.
*You can also if you are influencer minded negotiate your own pay per post or discount per post arrangement with these brands. Its not just fashion its everything, shoes, supplements, hair care, car polich you name it and there’s some points system for it.
Lifehacks for Home
I have dogs and they are big hairy messy and sometimes stinky dogs. I recently had an outside warm water tap installed so I can wash the dogs outside in summer or winter with warm and cool water temp. This is great for keeping them clean and keeping the inside of my house stink free.
Chargers & Power Points: Once you have moved into a new house you start to know where everyone congrgates the most, where you meet up points and it makes sense to put phone charges in the right place and have adequate power points.
I’m in a 3 story house right now and we have plenty of power points but not enough phone chargers. So on my list and what spawned this article is my thinking where I should place each phone charger.
I’ll need 4 chargers to cover the key areas:
- Loungeroom
- Bedroom
- Downstairs Gym
- Studio (Computer room)
This should keep everyone charged up and not having to duck off out the way to check messages etc.
Car Utilities: We travel a lot over the weekend visiting places, taking hikes, taking the dogs to adventures. We don’t usually need much but on the off days when we have its been a bummer to not have the items below.
Things I always keep in my car
- Plastic bag
- Collapsable water bucket – use this as a drinking bowl for dogs if travelling a long distance
- Spare shoes/thongs
- Rope
- Lighter
- Beach towel
- Small knife
Decisions: My partner and I always get stuck on decisions what to do next, where to go next, what to watch tonight. So we implemented a coin flip system where we both have our picks and we coin flip best of 3 to do what the winner wants. It takes emotion out of decisions and no one gets their way. This is a good neutral way to solve things.
Fun Fact: I made the decision to sell a successful large business I co-owned by flipping a coin. I was heading towards burnout and we were growing so fast after years of blood sweat and tears growing it.
The Outcome – Heads I stay Tails I sell and it was Tails 2 – 0. So I made the offer to my business partner and he accepted. I was outta there in 2 months into retirement.
Clothing: I am a tall guy at 201cm 6’6 and weighing over 140kgs Im a big unit hence the name TechGiant. When I find clothing I like Ill easily go and buy 4 of the item or more.
- I buy socks in bulk both work socks and sports socks – Ill never have different socks 🙂
- I buy underwear in bull – Im wearing Step One branded underwear for the last 5 years reliable and comfortable
- I buy hats in bulk
- I buy T-shirts in bulk
I never seem to be able to buy shoes in bulk though, when I find the size 16 the stores usually only have 1 box.
Snacks: I snack throughout the day I usually have a big lunchbox of assorted nuts, berries and seeds I snack on. I also keep a couple of tins of Baked beans and cans of spaghetti for rainy days and at $0.65 a can these are by far the cheapest snacks in the house. *Bonus tip if there is ever a zombie apocalypse or end-of-the-world situation Ill have rations with the nuts and cans.
Gift List: Im horrible at buying gifts and getting gifts. To me I think I have everything I need so gifts are really just stuff that’s going to get left somewhere laying around taking up space.
Now buying gifts for friends and family is hard but if you just note in your phones notepad each time they say they really liked something you have just started building a list of gift ideas for that person that they will enjoy. Genius.
Staying on gifts
Greetings Cards: My wife buys greeting cards all the time on the off chance she needs them and she really makes an effort for her cards to be memorable. So we buy cards in bulk now getting 50 to 100 cards for $1 each and we have every occasion covered – New job, birthdays, babies, divorce, new job what ever we have it).
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