“Show me the life hack you randomly saw one day, that is now an unconscious, standard practice in your life.” That’s the call to action Kelly Hurst posed on TikTok that has since gone viral with over 37,000 responses and millions of views. People have created ingenious shortcuts for all kinds of tasks, from using the car seat warmer to keep takeout warm to using the washing machine as an ice bucket for parties. Life hacks can be anything that saves time, effort or money and takes the friction out of your day. We’ll talk to Hurts and a panel of journalists and life hackers who will share the best (and worst) tips out there, and we’ll hear from you: What’s a life hack that you’ve adopted?
Here are some hacks that our listeners sent in:
COOKING
- To peel garlic easily, microwave the entire bulb for 10-20 seconds. Garlic will peel easier!
- The best cooking hack I know is for reheating cold pizza. Always do it in a nonstick pan, with a lid on. The crust gets crispy, and the cheese melts perfectly… It’s almost better than new.
- Use a vegetable peeler when your butter is hard. You can peel off the perfect amount of butter for toast!
- Making buttermilk is easy. 1 cup milk and 1 tablespoon vinegar. Mix and wait approx 5 minutes and voila! Easy and organic chemistry at work. Or you can use whole milk yogurt and dilute it down.
- I bought a lazy Susan to make breads. I put an oven mat or folded cloth napkin underneath to steady the base. Once that is done, I can roll pastry -and roti and chappathi – evenly and easily by turning the tray instead of moving the dough.
- Tap a hard boiled egg lightly with the back of the spoon– it will help it peel easier!
- Use a pant hanger to hang your recipe as you cook. Allows you to get the recipe off the counter and you know where you left it!
- Don’t have a pastry brush? Use the heel of a baguette loaf as a “sponge” that you can use to brush/stamp olive oil on bread slices to make croutons.
- Use a slice of buttered bread to evenly coat your corn-on-the-cob without wasting and chasing slippery chunks of butter all over your cob, plate, hands or shirt. And then bonus: there’s the deliciously warm “butter sponge” you get to eat too.
- Use an old-school hand mixer to shred chicken. The blades aren’t sharp enough to cut it, and reduce it to mush like a blender or food processor would, but it will shred the chicken. The only tip I would add is use a deep bowl, because that chicken will fly.
- As someone who grew up with chickens… egg expiration dates in the grocery store are meaningless. Eggs are usually good for significantly longer than the carton claims. So how do you tell? Bad eggs float in water! Good eggs sink.
- Use a pressure cooker to cook your beans. Will cut the time down!
- Dunk an old baguette in cold water and reheat at 375 degrees. And the bread will taste like fresh.
- Take pre-peeled garlic, mince and add olive oil. Freeze this flat in a ziploc bag. You can break off chunks to use when you need garlic.
PARTIES
- Use your washing machine as an ice bucket for parties. You can fill the machine with ice and set it on the drain after the party.
- Wrap a wet paper towel around bottled drinks and put them in the freezer for faster cooling
- If you invite two people to your house for dinner, you have to clean the whole house because they will want to see it. If you invite 10 or more, you only need to clean the kitchen and the powder room!
SHOPPING
- I take a Stasher-type silicone reusable bag to the grocery store when I purchase meat or fish from the butcher. They weigh the bag first and then again when it is filled, and the price label goes on the outside of the bag– pulls off easily because the bag is silicone. And I can marinate the meat in the same bag.
- I keep reusable shopping bags in my trunk at all times so I don’t have to accumulate more plastic bags. I empty them out after a shopping trip, fold them up and leave them by the door so I don’t forget to put them back in the trunk.
- Take a picture of the inside of your fridge/cupboard before going grocery shopping
- If you have a SNAP or EBT card, farmers markets have programs to “market match” which will double your buying power.
ORGANIZING
- Beverage trays you get at takeout places can be repurposed for organization in your fridge and pantry
BEAUTY
- I’ve been using a soap bar as shampoo for about 40 years! I can’t even imagine how many plastic bottles I’ve saved—“every day is earth day!” I usually use regular Dr. Bronner’s, but there are many types labeled “shampoo bars” that are great! Haircutters always remark that my hair is in great condition— but, that might have more to do with never using a hairdryer. Here’s to air drying hair and laundry, too!
GARDENING
- I find discarded succulent trimmings when my neighbors or the parks clean up and plant them in my front yard.
- After losing too many expensive garden clippers, I bought a leather holster for my clippers, that clips onto my gardening pants. Magic! I haven’t lost or tossed a set of clippers since then.
- You can grow your own green onions by taking the root end and placing it in water. The green onion will regrow!
- We used our son’s rainboots, which he had outgrown, and made them into planters!
TRAVELING
- In the Bay Area, your library card can be used to check out a pass for state parks and get you free entry.
EATING
- Use the other end of a banana to peel it. Easier than the stem end.
- I disagree with the grossness of the banana hack. You don’t dig your nail in the bottom. Rather, you pinch the bottom part of the banana and it opens up for an easy peel. Way less gross and way less smooshing of your banana, in my opinion.
- And to save half a banana, pull a bit of peel over the unused half and secure it with an elastic. The banana will keep without having to refrigerate or freeze it.
- Try hitting a popular ramen spot on a hot day when people are less likely to seek out ramen.
CLEANING
- When you have to hand wash a bunch of dishes after a party, like China and crystal, use a clean, empty dishwasher as your drying rack.
- Sort, soak and then load your dishwasher.
- Getting my boys a basketball hoop laundry basket has been a game changer for my husband and me. They actually enjoy putting their dirty laundry where it goes!
- When drying the laundry, I’ll take the heavier items — jeans, heavier shirts, towels if it’s a load of towels — and drape them over our patio chairs in the sun. (Yes, solar energy is amazing). I do the lighter items in the drier, which gets done much faster this way.
- To remove price tags that won’t peel off easily or stubbornly stick, I warm up the tag with a hair dryer. The heat must loosen up the glue because the tag comes right off. It’s amazing.
- Instead of throwing away my dryer sheets after using them I save them to tackle scrubbing pans I don’t want my sponge to touch and then I can just throw away. Such as stuck meat on the pan or scrubbing the bathtub.
- I use a spray bottle filled with diluted liquid dish detergent. Saves water, and dish soap! I spray the dishes right when they go in the sink, then I only need a little bit of water on my scrubby-sponge to get them clean.
- I’m old and arthritic and live in a house with stairs. To get loads of laundry down the stairs without carrying them, I sewed a bunch of faux Ikea bags, which I fill, tie the straps together, and throw them down the stairs. Getting back up will require another hack.
HEALTH
- Have an itchy bug bite but you don’t have ointment? Dab a tiny bit of bar soap (not too wet) on the bite. I learned this one from my mom when I was a kid and still use it.
RECYCLING
- You can reuse the tape on packages you receive by peeling carefully. They are still sticky enough to use again.
EMERGENCIES
- Hang elastic-banded, rechargeable headlamps on doorknobs throughout the house. When there are no lights, I can always stumble and find a door to get some light and it also gives me two hands to deal with issues instead of having to hold a flashlight.
PETS
- A pet care hack. Wrap the top of your head (or the outer surface of a baseball cap) with plastic cling wrap. Apply some peanut butter to your head/hat and use it as a yummy treat to distract your dog while you tend to any kind of examination or grooming of their paws.
- Use a lint roller to take the ticks off your pet.
AND FINALLY…
- Folks have been around providing advice, long before someone renamed these practices “life hacks”. We used to do these things because they saved time and money and also avoided waste. Ask an older person about their clever, ingenious ways to solve everyday problems.