To get on the el (train), I have a card that I just have to touch to the card reader–no need to insert it into a slot or anything. I recently discovered that I don’t even have to take the card out of my wallet to activate the turnstile. This is especially helpful when my hands are full and it’s hard to pull the card out of my wallet without dropping a bunch of stuff.
My white t-shirts (which I use as undershirts) don’t have an actual tag, but rather have the washing instructions screened onto the upper back. In the dark, it’s very difficult to see this label, so it is hard to figure out if I’m putting the shirt on backwards or not. I just discovered that the base of the collar is thicker in the back than the front. It almost feels like there’s a drawstring or shoelace there. This will help me in the winter when it’s still dark outside in the morning and I don’t want to turn on the light and hurt my eyes.
I have no sense of direction–zip—and I live in a larger city----I just love the little direction meter in my rear view mirror–It’s actually training me in directional thinking. I love living in the future!!
I got a Droid last September. Until then, I had never had an electronic calendar/day planner type thing. I always used the paper kind. And I never, ever checked it because it stayed on my desk at work. The only time anything ever got written down was when I was at my desk.
Now I can either enter important reminders on my phone, or on Google calendar. I’m pretty fast with the phone, but if I have a lot of things are complicated things, I can use any computer anywhere and add stuff to my calendar. And the best part are the reminders! I can set it to give me any number of reminders at any intervals.
I rarely forget things (well, never, so far) I need to do! And I don’t have to think about it!
For parents - If you’re giving your child a juicebox, lift up the little triangular flaps on the top of either side. The kid holds the box by the “wings” and is much less likely to squeeze the box and squirt juice all over the place.
I learned this from my brother-in-law. I now use the hose attachment on the sink to fill the reservoir on the coffee maker rather than using the carafe. Quicker and neater than filling then pouring from the carafe.
It’s not recent, but years ago I discovered that a spoon works a lot better than a fork for scooping up cat food from the can to the dish. For some reason most people, IME, seem to regard the fork as the go-to utensil for this purpose.
Another cat-related one, which is quite recent: If your cats are always trying to go after your earbuds when you aren’t using them, a hardshell eyeglasses case makes an excellent storage receptacle. As does the underside of the pillow, when I’m done listening to stuff before going to sleep.
This isn’t too recent, but it took me longer than it should have to figure it out - you can pick up the cat litter box and scoop it ON the dryer, instead of crouching on the floor. We have three boxes, and my legs would be on fire by the time I was done scooping and crouching until I figured this out.
On that note, shift+tab lets you tab through blank fields backwards – very handy when you’re filling out forms and accidentally go too far and get peeved that you actually have to use the mouse now.
Strongly agree. I pay my employees more per hour than my competition pays theirs. In exchange, they do more work in less time. Instead of 40 hour weeks, we do 30 - 32. Time flies, and we all have more free time!
