This is new terminology for something that has been around for ever. Several generations ago, people who were in the know just called it thrift. When I was coming up, I described it as living better for less. Pinching pennies, being stingy and home economics are other ways of getting to the same place.In any case, the results are the same. There is rapidly growing interest in forging a new society that is sustainable, or at least one which destroys less of the planet while meeting our actual needs. Some who are delving into this realm are motivated by different factors and there are a variety of terms that people use to describe the move toward becoming more self-reliant, self-sufficient or "green". This last term has always rubbed me the wrong way a bit, because it is more blatantly a code word than the others that there is an easy "fix" to very difficult problems. Those of us who have experience living lightly on the planet know that the self is an illusion. All of nature, and of course we are an integral part, are tied intimately to the whole in undeniable ways.
Life hacks often yield what seem to be conservation measures, unorthodox purposes for waste and/or additional uses for mundane items that have served their intended purposes already. I'm sure that some of the first paleolithic humans had mad skills in this regard. Those who were able to break from convention and find ways to survive were using life hacks before there were books, codified language or even instruments to write with. The first stick scribing in the soil conveying information was a sort of hack. In our daily lives today, we often forget that this is a part of who we are and not every want or need has to be met in traditional ways.
I remember the first time I saw a bar of soap, hung over a sink, inside an onion bag. This life hack allowed for several things to occur. First, it was right at hand, where it would be used. Second, it was hung in such a way that any excess moisture on the soap or bag could drip off and into the basin and because the whole affair was on a hook, dropping a slick bar of soap on the floor was an impossibility. It was clean and dry nearly all the time and preserved the bar for much longer amounts of time (and more hand washings) than a typical soap dish. I had discovered many years earlier that if you bought a large quantity of soap took it out of the box, and let it dry thoroughly before use, it would become harder and not disappear as quickly. The snot-like gel that would collect in the soap dish had always grossed me out and it seemed like a complete waste. The onion bag seemed to help preserve a very cheap, but vital, resource. The best thing about most of these techniques is that the intended purpose of the materials used seems to have little to do with the end use and yet, once the materials and techniques are paired in a new way, it seems that they were made for one another.
Something that has made the rounds on the internet is a cheap and fun technique for lighting. One of the age old problems with camping is that flashlights are mostly designed to produce a beam of light, this is great for task light, yet often what is needed is area light. Because headlamps are more and more cheap and available, more and more people are becoming aware of them, or in fact have purchased them for camping or other tasks, but if you put the headlamp on a gallon jug full of water, it refracts in every direction, making it a wonderful diffuse source of light. This helps reduce the risk of temporary night blindness that often occurs when a flashlight beam is inadvertently cast into ones eyes. This hack is so simple, yet so elegant it helps to exemplify the whole idea of what a hack is and why they are important.
Seeing things in a new way can often eclipse the way we saw the world before and once a person starts seeing hacks, many needs can be met with nontraditional tools, techniques and methods.
A friend described a good one for custodians, props people and those who need to fill a bucket from a sink. If you have a sink that is too small to fit a container (like a large mop bucket) under, but you would like to fill it, grab a dustpan and use it to shunt the water beyond the edge of the sink, channeling the water over the edge and it will fall into the bucket. Most of the time, if you are sweeping and mopping floors, you will have a dustpan available so that it will be at hand and made useful for this less orthodox purpose.
If you ever need a camp stove, or an emergency heater, there are dozens of designs for rocket stoves, tin can stoves and improvised cook stoves online. These hacks often take a bit of labor to make, but the rewards of cooking in a controlled fashion with re-purposed waste products is rewarding in and of itself. I saw an actual camp stove for sale just the other day for $65, using an old tin can or two is cheap enough that spending a few minutes fashioning a stove out of them would be a relatively high paying job, just for the avoided cost savings, not to mention that most improvised stoves use readily available fuel rather than expensive refined stuff.
I have seen a pair of flattened two liter soda bottles and string used as flip flops, bread bag twist ties substituted for shoe laces, bread bags sandwiched between two layers of socks inside a pair of shoes replacing boots in winter and discarded, worn out tires used for replacement soles on shoes. All of these are life hacks that can save money, time, space or just for being useful while keeping "waste" out of landfills. One of the trademarks of life hacks is that the first time you see them, it is an aha moment. There is a momentary thrill that comes from sharing the realization that this is an excellent, simple solution to what could have been a difficult situation.
Pot smokers have had this down cold for decades, possibly because they have had to get creative in the face of discriminatory laws against their type of smoke, or perhaps it flows from the creativity that can come from breaking mental boundaries. I have seen all manner of smoking devices fashioned from things like soda cans, apples, toilet paper tubes, pens, you name it. A favorite of mine has been the partially broken green stick that can be used as a tiny clip for holding the "roach" when it becomes too hot to handle.
WARNING: This next hack is not recommended. It is only to be used in extreme or emergency situations. Once, many years ago, I was driving an old car and the windshield wipers failed. The hack I used when it rained was to attach two shoelaces to the wipers and pull them back and forth. Because the car was a big old American one, I had to have a passenger pull the wipers back from the passenger side, but if they had a good sense of rhythm, we managed quite well.
Having a common-sense approach, some creativity, using all five senses, paying attention and being willing to break a few boundaries are essential to life hacks. I have seen car doors, lighters and tables used as bottle openers. I have used many tools and objects in ways that they were never intended to be used and I have solved problems that seemed insurmountable to others with just a bit of rope and some cylindrical pieces of wood. Understanding that our entire environment holds a vast tool kit can be liberating and utilizing things in new ways can save money and often a trip to town for hardware or specialized tools.
I don't care if you call yourself a survivalist, a prepper, a homesteader, or "green", these methods are something that everyone can use to overcome the consumer culture that we have been born into. When we begin to require more than a single use for objects, we can find great satisfaction in owning less, buying less and having more fun with what we do possess.
Life hacks often yield what seem to be conservation measures, unorthodox purposes for waste and/or additional uses for mundane items that have served their intended purposes already. I'm sure that some of the first paleolithic humans had mad skills in this regard. Those who were able to break from convention and find ways to survive were using life hacks before there were books, codified language or even instruments to write with. The first stick scribing in the soil conveying information was a sort of hack. In our daily lives today, we often forget that this is a part of who we are and not every want or need has to be met in traditional ways.
I remember the first time I saw a bar of soap, hung over a sink, inside an onion bag. This life hack allowed for several things to occur. First, it was right at hand, where it would be used. Second, it was hung in such a way that any excess moisture on the soap or bag could drip off and into the basin and because the whole affair was on a hook, dropping a slick bar of soap on the floor was an impossibility. It was clean and dry nearly all the time and preserved the bar for much longer amounts of time (and more hand washings) than a typical soap dish. I had discovered many years earlier that if you bought a large quantity of soap took it out of the box, and let it dry thoroughly before use, it would become harder and not disappear as quickly. The snot-like gel that would collect in the soap dish had always grossed me out and it seemed like a complete waste. The onion bag seemed to help preserve a very cheap, but vital, resource. The best thing about most of these techniques is that the intended purpose of the materials used seems to have little to do with the end use and yet, once the materials and techniques are paired in a new way, it seems that they were made for one another.
Something that has made the rounds on the internet is a cheap and fun technique for lighting. One of the age old problems with camping is that flashlights are mostly designed to produce a beam of light, this is great for task light, yet often what is needed is area light. Because headlamps are more and more cheap and available, more and more people are becoming aware of them, or in fact have purchased them for camping or other tasks, but if you put the headlamp on a gallon jug full of water, it refracts in every direction, making it a wonderful diffuse source of light. This helps reduce the risk of temporary night blindness that often occurs when a flashlight beam is inadvertently cast into ones eyes. This hack is so simple, yet so elegant it helps to exemplify the whole idea of what a hack is and why they are important.
Seeing things in a new way can often eclipse the way we saw the world before and once a person starts seeing hacks, many needs can be met with nontraditional tools, techniques and methods.
A friend described a good one for custodians, props people and those who need to fill a bucket from a sink. If you have a sink that is too small to fit a container (like a large mop bucket) under, but you would like to fill it, grab a dustpan and use it to shunt the water beyond the edge of the sink, channeling the water over the edge and it will fall into the bucket. Most of the time, if you are sweeping and mopping floors, you will have a dustpan available so that it will be at hand and made useful for this less orthodox purpose.
If you ever need a camp stove, or an emergency heater, there are dozens of designs for rocket stoves, tin can stoves and improvised cook stoves online. These hacks often take a bit of labor to make, but the rewards of cooking in a controlled fashion with re-purposed waste products is rewarding in and of itself. I saw an actual camp stove for sale just the other day for $65, using an old tin can or two is cheap enough that spending a few minutes fashioning a stove out of them would be a relatively high paying job, just for the avoided cost savings, not to mention that most improvised stoves use readily available fuel rather than expensive refined stuff.
I have seen a pair of flattened two liter soda bottles and string used as flip flops, bread bag twist ties substituted for shoe laces, bread bags sandwiched between two layers of socks inside a pair of shoes replacing boots in winter and discarded, worn out tires used for replacement soles on shoes. All of these are life hacks that can save money, time, space or just for being useful while keeping "waste" out of landfills. One of the trademarks of life hacks is that the first time you see them, it is an aha moment. There is a momentary thrill that comes from sharing the realization that this is an excellent, simple solution to what could have been a difficult situation.
Pot smokers have had this down cold for decades, possibly because they have had to get creative in the face of discriminatory laws against their type of smoke, or perhaps it flows from the creativity that can come from breaking mental boundaries. I have seen all manner of smoking devices fashioned from things like soda cans, apples, toilet paper tubes, pens, you name it. A favorite of mine has been the partially broken green stick that can be used as a tiny clip for holding the "roach" when it becomes too hot to handle.
WARNING: This next hack is not recommended. It is only to be used in extreme or emergency situations. Once, many years ago, I was driving an old car and the windshield wipers failed. The hack I used when it rained was to attach two shoelaces to the wipers and pull them back and forth. Because the car was a big old American one, I had to have a passenger pull the wipers back from the passenger side, but if they had a good sense of rhythm, we managed quite well.
Having a common-sense approach, some creativity, using all five senses, paying attention and being willing to break a few boundaries are essential to life hacks. I have seen car doors, lighters and tables used as bottle openers. I have used many tools and objects in ways that they were never intended to be used and I have solved problems that seemed insurmountable to others with just a bit of rope and some cylindrical pieces of wood. Understanding that our entire environment holds a vast tool kit can be liberating and utilizing things in new ways can save money and often a trip to town for hardware or specialized tools.
I don't care if you call yourself a survivalist, a prepper, a homesteader, or "green", these methods are something that everyone can use to overcome the consumer culture that we have been born into. When we begin to require more than a single use for objects, we can find great satisfaction in owning less, buying less and having more fun with what we do possess.
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