Lifehacks, Tips & Tricks

Small tricks. Big impact. Clever tricks for everyday life, kitchen, tech, garden and outdoors — explained briefly, with a source.

Emergencydo the right thing, fast

Game ideas

Newspaper stepping stones race

Shaker cans: guess the contents by sound

Uncle Otto's bath: sentences built on folded paper

Build a mini escape room at home

Kitchen orchestra with pots and pans

Words-within-words in five minutes

The Doctor Guesses the Rule

Follow me or run away: race for the gap in the circle

Tech

Android guest profile for briefly lending the phone

Read the charge cycles of a MacBook battery

Minimise windows in Windows 11 by shaking a title bar

Put a Wi-Fi repeater halfway between router and dead zone

Turn on automatic standby on the TV

Do not leave a smartphone in a hot car

Lock an iPhone to a single app (Guided Access)

iPhone: check the maximum battery capacity

Kitchen

See all 159 →

Chill drinks in a salted ice-water bath

Thicken a thin sauce with starch or flour slurry

Flavour homemade lemonade with mint, rosemary or basil

Spoon in the neck of a sparkling-wine bottle to keep the fizz

Do not freeze hard-boiled eggs or gelatine dishes

Score the salmon skin so the fillet stays flat in the pan

Collect vegetable peelings and stems for homemade stock

Soak smoking chips for 20 minutes before grilling

Household

See all 120 →

Ink stains on carpet treated with vinegar or citric acid

Sweat odour in clothing removed with a vinegar soak

Plant trees or shrubs in front of the windows

Placing a half onion on a mosquito bite

Fridge odour treated with a small bowl of lemon juice

Choose a shower head delivering less than nine litres per minute

Refill a stripped screw hole with toothpicks and wood glue

Label closed food containers

Outdoors

See all 163 →

Nettles as an indicator of nitrogen-rich soil

Push residual water out of taps with a balloon

Flush the fresh water tank after storage

Fix your eyes on the horizon against seasickness

Adding a travel health insurance on top of the EHIC

Cook with a lid and pour pasta water out of the vehicle

Keeping valuables out of checked luggage

Tape over the edges of a blister plaster so it stays put

Car & bike

Switch off power consumers on short winter trips so the battery stays charged

Adjust the headset: loosen the stem bolts before tightening the top cap

Check the brake rotor minimum thickness stamped on the disc

Spoke rule for wheel wobble: tighten the opposite side in quarter turns

Change disc brake pads before the backing plate hits the rotor

Use only plastic tyre levers and lever in short steps

Measure chain stretch with a chain wear gauge

Rest the chain on the bottom bracket shell while riveting to relieve tension

DIY

Squeaking door: oil the hinges instead of replacing them

Pull painter's tape off slowly at a 45-degree angle

Rub candle wax on the runners of a sticking wooden drawer

Turn off the orbital setting on a jigsaw for cleaner cuts

Never skip grit steps when sanding wood

Dissolve rust with acid: 3 percent citric acid solution, cola or a vinegar-oil mix

Remove stubborn rust mechanically

Test a window seal with a sheet of paper

Everyday

See all 116 →

Cling film under the screw cap of a travel bottle

Review the material shortly before sleep

Delete screenshots, burst frames and duplicates first

Bring lunch from home

Read dense texts in five steps (SQ3R)

Chunk long numbers into blocks

Explain it to a child to find the gaps

Sort photos in sessions, not all at once

Garden

Coffee grounds around sensitive plants against slugs

Willow water as a rooting aid for cuttings

Burying chopped banana peel at the root zone

Swelling a loose wooden handle in water to tighten the metal shank

Interplanting onions or leeks among carrots

Slug fence with an outward-curled top edge

Mow the lawn only at about 20 cm of grass height

Removing rust with steel wool before the season

Pets

Get the puppy used to paw handling early

Check claw length: paper test and floor-clicking test

Care for paw pads regularly with paw balm

Never let the cat roam free in the car

Cardboard food puzzle: toilet roll tubes in a lid or a small box with holes

Hunt-style play before a meal, then the bowl

Always move the feather wand away from the cat

Start car training in a parked car

Wellbeing

No coffee, tea or alcohol in the late afternoon and evening

Use a separate alarm clock instead of a phone

Imagery journey before sleep

Exercise earlier in the day, not right before bed

Warm the feet with a foot bath or foot massage

3-2-1 evening rule for better sleep

No daytime naps and no evening dozing

Warm milk with honey