Lifehacker

You probably get more emails per day than ever before—nuggets of important information buried among an ever-increasing pile of junk. There are newsletters you don’t remember signing up for and store promotions you definitely didn’t sign up for mixed in with calendar invitations and a pressing question from a client.…Read more...

We’ve all had that moment when you’re working hard, absorbed in what you’re doing, only to glance at your phone and see an upsetting text. Perhaps it’s from someone you have a difficult relationship with, or it’s general bad news, or there’s a family crisis you can’t do much about. When it happens, what can you do to…Read more...

Let’s say you’re so sick of your job that you’re ready to quit without another one lined up. To survive, you’ll need some money to cover expenses, of course—but how much is that exactly?Read more...

I once lived on a bog.Read more...

We all know the U-shaped travel neck pillow. We love the U-shaped travel pillow...sort of? If it isn’t scratchy, bad smelling, or seemingly missing a lot of its polystyrene foam beads, leaving its fabric gaping like an ill-fitting dress. (How do they get so deflated?) Actually, on second thought, U-shaped travel neck…Read more...

Apple Watch docks can cost a pretty penny, on can repurpose something you already have things you have lying around the house to make your own. Redditors have recently shared their instructions for making your own perfectly usable Apple Watch dock out of Lego. Can you think of anything better to do with the next 30…Read more...

If you’re planning on buying a home in the next few years, you might consider parking your down payment in a First-Time Home Buyer Savings Account (FHSA). A few states currently sponsor FHSAs, and they’re different from basic savings accounts in that they can save you thousands of dollars in tax deductions. However,…Read more...

Notability created some drama for itself this week when it announced that it would switch all users over to a subscription-based payment system—including those who had already paid for the app. While the app quickly reversed course (likely because they were about to break Apple’s terms of service), it serves as a…Read more...

There are three words that can separate a strong leader from an insecure one, and they are as follows: “I don’t know.” It may feel counterintuitive that the person who should have all the answers, often doesn’t—but many books on leadership and management suggest that a good leader should be adept at knowing what they …Read more...

Plunking a scraped and spent vanilla bean into an aliquot of alcohol is a good idea. (Those beans are expensive, and you might as well eek out that last bit of flavor.) Buying whole, pricey pods for the express purpose of making your own extract, however, is not a good idea. Simply put: You don’t have access to the…Read more...

Don’t get us wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a family vacation. It can totally be fun. (Well, besides the prepping, packing, unpacking, expense, bickering, and navigating through an airport, long car ride, or time change with small children.) But there are plenty of other ways to create amazing childhood…Read more...

How often do you buy video games? Are you someone who frequently drops $60 on the latest Nintendo title, or do you wait for only those games you’ve been watching closely? Regardless, no matter your purchasing habits—no matter how sure you are that you want that game—whenever possible, you should always try its demo…Read more...

There are days lately when it feels like we’ve had enough history, thanks very much. That it would be nice if history could slow down for just a moment to let us catch our breaths, that it’s hard enough to keep up with the day-to-day news without also looking back. Of course, that’s the attitude that’s gotten books…Read more...

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was officially recommended by the CDC last night, but the pharmacy websites I checked then weren’t ready to offer kids’ appointments yet. By the time I woke up this morning, the soonest appointment I could get was for next week. So be advised: They spots are filling up quick.Read more...

A recent study reveals that people spend an average of $276 every month on impulse purchases—and that most people are happy with what they buy. Considering how common it is, the question isn’t necessarily whether you should stop splurging, but rather, what is the right amount of impulse buying, and when should you be…Read more...

A lot of people like to refer to fall and winter as “soup season,” but I’ve always considered these colder months to be “mashed potato season.” Whether eaten as a (non-negotiable) Thanksgiving side, or as a mid-week meal, few things comfort and satiate quite like a bowl of creamy, smushed spuds.

The Shortcuts app allows you to run automation routines across multiple Apple devices—and with macOS Monterey, it’s available on your Mac, too. It’s pre-loaded on Monterey, so you don’t need to install it separately. Of course, the Automator app has allowed you to run these routines on the Mac for years now; but…Read more...

The CDC’s advisory panel voted today to recommend Pfizer’s pediatric COVID vaccine for all children ages 5 to 11. That recommendation comes with the endorsement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, and the Pediatric…Read more...

While much has been written about plants being able to purify the air from harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, and volatile organic compounds (based on an oft-cited 1989 NASA study), that study has also been debunked as having no significant correlation to the air quality of your home (for one, it was…Read more...

You don’t need to wait until Black Friday to get the best deal—and this year, in particular, you may not want to wait that long to get started. Some major retailers offer price-matching guarantees that can be applied retroactively; and by getting the jump on gift-buying now, you’ll be more likely to snag popular items…Read more...

It’s no surprise that after a year of unprecedented (remember that word?) isolation, there was a significant surge in users seeking out remote therapy and mental health apps. In terms of increasing mental health awareness and decreasing mental health stigma, more people seeking out help is a positive thing. However,…Read more...

Hosting your very first Thanksgiving dinner can be intimidating—especially this year, which might also be your guests’ first in-person holiday gathering in...quite some time. It’s a big meal with a lot of dishes, and requires more pots, pans, platters, and serving utensils than the average person has in their kitchen.…Read more...

Let’s talk classic direct-to-video movies for a moment. American Psycho II: All American Girl (with Mila Kunis and Williams Shatner); Dollman vs. Demonic Toys; Bratz: Starrin’ & Stylin’; Hellraiser 5-10; Amityville 5-19(!), The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It; Starship…Read more...

“Your system has run out of application memory” is not a warm, friendly alert. It feels cold and dark, as if your Mac is telling you “the end is nigh.” Luckily, the end isn’t nigh, but receiving this alert on your computer is still concerning. Depending on your machine, it could just be a bug, or it could be a…Read more...

Fellow lunatics: November is offering some fantastic moon-centric entertainment, so turn off Netflix for once, and gaze up at Luna instead. November’s moon, known as “the beaver moon,” is not going to be a full eclipse, but it’s close: 98 percent lunar coverage, which is pretty good coverage, if you ask me.Read more...

It’s the beginning of No Nut November, a yearly internet challenge in which participants abstain from orgasming for an entire month. This unusual annual abstinence event originated online around 2011, probably as a satirical take on “Movember,” and since then has grown in popularity. It’s hard to say how many people…Read more...

Now that October is behind us, it’s time to turn our attention to the next holiday on which we can gorge ourselves silly: Thanksgiving. While Halloween has the costumes and candy, Christmas and Hanukkah have the gifts, and Easter has a fictional Peeps-bearing bunny, Thanksgiving has no special characters or…Read more...

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Our bodies and brains know what time it is even without looking at a clock. We get sleepy at night and hungry during the day...and then a time change comes along and throws us for a loop. With one of those time changes fast approaching, once again, here’s how you can prepare your body.

I did not have a bagel until I was 7 years old. My home state of Mississippi is more of a biscuit place, but bagels became part of my life when I moved to Los Angeles in 1993, as did Jewish delis. It was an exciting time.

The much hyped X1 credit card, billed as “the smartest credit card ever made” is now finally available to the general public, but is it as innovative as its marketing suggests? Indeed, there are some unique perks, along with a good rewards rate—especially for a no-fee card—although the reward redemption options are…Read more...

Most of us buy things as we need them: pantry snacks, a haircut, a new mattress or laptop. Then there are certain things it behooves us to purchase before we need them, to avoid potential disaster. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most essential “buy before you need” items, inspired by this AskReddit thread.Read more...

Snapchat isn’t just for nudes anymore. I mean, it is. But these days, it’s so much more than the app for sending disappearing photos—Snapchat is now a photo and video editor, a friend-finder, an AR experience, and a news aggregator, all bundled into a social media app. It has great features, some more obvious and than…Read more...

Candy lasts a long time, as we explained earlier this week—chocolate, caramel, and hard candy will all last nine months or more at room temperature if properly packaged. But what if some of the bars in your haul are already creeping close to their expiration dates, or you have fresh candy but want to keep it around…Read more...

The pandemic has increased everyone’s wanderlust by leaps and bounds, but booking a trip to the place you’ve seen tagged all over Instagram can have a negative impact on local communities. This week, we’re learning how to be more conscientious travelers with help from travel journalist Sara Clemence.

It is, as you have probably noticed, the first of November, which gives anyone who celebrates American Thanksgiving exactly 24 days to prepare for The Big Day. This isn’t a tiny amount of days, but it isn’t an excessively large amount either—especially this year.

WhatsApp just dropped support for another round of older versions of iOS and Android. As described in WhatsApp’s recently updated system requirements, your device must run at least iOS 10 or Android 4.1 to access WhatsApp after Nov. 1, 2021.

It you’re looking for a creative way to make extra money, how does $2,000 for a month of doing almost nothing sound? Before you say “hell, yes,” here’s the catch: You have to already live in a house with an active pest infestation and let the infestation continue untreated for part of the month-long job.

You did it. You ran a 5K, or a half marathon, or maybe even the notorious full marathon. Congrats! So...now what?

macOS Monterey might seem like nothing but a minor, iterative OS release. On the surface, its biggest new features—SharePlay, Focus, Shortcuts—are all about integrating with the iPhone and iPad. But when you look a bit deeper, you’ll find that, as always, Apple has made some small tweaks that improve the overall Mac…Read more...

There are no two ways about it: Gel nail polish is amazing. To be able to leave the salon with dry nails you don’t have to worry about accidentally smudging, denting, or uplifting altogether while the polish hardens, and then have color strong enough to withstand multiple showers, countless dishes, and kid’s baths, and…Read more...

Thanksgiving’s coming around again, and this year, we have no excuses. For many, one of the (very) few upsides of the pandemic was that it provided a solid excuse to avoid toxic family holiday gatherings—and if a reluctance to spend time with your relatives is entirely alien to you, congratulations.

Technically, washing lettuce or other greens and preparing them for a salad isn’t difficult, or even particularly time-consuming—but when it’s 7 p.m. and you’re exhausted and still need to get some form of dinner on the table, bagged salad can come in handy. That is, unless it’s potentially contaminated with Listeria…Read more...

Take a minute to think about what “healthy” food means to you. Is it something low-calorie? Low-fat? Low-carb? Filling without containing very much substance? That’s not healthy food, that’s diet food. There’s a difference.

One of the many hierarchies of Instagram has been the link-in-stories feature. You only got access to it if you had more than 10,000 followers, or if you had a verified account, so most users couldn’t add a link directly from their Instagram story. This is also why the link aggregators for Instagram bios got popular.Read more...

macOS Monterey brings one of iPadOS 15's most interesting features to the Mac: Quick Notes. Apple’s Notes app is already a robust note-taking solution, but it’s now more integrated into the OS. Using the new Quick Notes feature, you can start taking notes from anywhere on the Mac. All it takes is a gesture or a…Read more...

Daylight Saving Time officially ends this weekend, in the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 7. Clocks will be rolled back an hour, which means, for next new months, the sun will be rising earlier in the morning and start setting around the time you’re likely headed home from the office, if not before. Assuming you…Read more...

A green tomato in early November is a moral dilemma.

There are a lot of myths about how TikTok works. I know firsthand how many hilarious people struggle to gain any traction with their own jokes. Even if there’s no one secret to going viral, there must be some basic tenants for online success, right?

When it comes to gardening tasks, fall can feel like a season of preparation: getting your plants ready for the winter, and cleaning things up a bit so you have less work to do come spring. But if you’ve already planted your spring-flowering bulbs, put away your outdoor furniture, and raked all the leaves, you may be…Read more...