We live our everyday lives in relation to our daily grind, each of us having our own routines. Going through each day without a second thought, sometimes we overlook how easy it can be to make our daily chores even simpler.
These life hacks can reduce the amount of time you spend on daily activities, if you stick to them and make them your personal habits. As Bill Gates once said, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Here are a bunch of tips and tricks — compiled by a very lazy person — that will make you an everyday genius.
1. The No-Chug Jug
Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to pour yourself a glass of milk in the morning, and you end up making a mess on the kitchen table? Keep the following hack in mind the next time you pour yourself a drink, and there will be no more reasons for you to cry over spilled milk!
We usually pour milk from the carton with the opening leaning as close as possible to the glass. To prevent spillage, simply flip the carton upside-down, so that the opening ends up on the upper half of the carton-lid. It may seem bizarre at first, but this way, your milk/juice will flow out of the carton in a steady stream, rather than the usual chugging mess — which might remind you of your irresponsible self throwing up in batches after a hangover.
2. The Cupcake Burger
Everyone loves a good cupcake, but nobody loves looking like a savage beast after getting the icing on their noses. Therefore, we present to you the Cupcake Burger! You might want to use a small knife for this, but really, all you’ll need are your brains and ingenuity:
Simply cut/tear the muffin portion of the cupcake into half and sandwich your cupcake icing with the muffins like a burger. This way, you’ll get a more even distribution of icing and muffin with each bite, rather than having the cupcake icing stuck to the roof of your mouth. You can also say goodbye to that ugly horse face you make when you’re trying to eat your cupcake without getting the icing on your nose.
3. Sharing is Caring
Remember how you would offer your friends a bag of Cheetos whenever they came over? Remember how everybody eventually ended up with oily, orange fingers/hands from scraping the oily interior of the bag? Say goodbye to your germaphobic fears — here’s how to turn that bag into a platter in seconds:
Rather than ripping the bag open on its side, make a small incision in the centre of the bag (with your teeth or a sharp object). Proceed to tear off an opening in a spiral fashion, enlarging the circle as you go. You’ll eventually end up with an oval-shaped hole in the bag, where your friends can simply pick the snacks off the plate without getting their hands dirty!
4. Garlic Fingers
If you’re someone who cooks regularly, the following tip should be treated as a family heirloom. Garlic and onions are the quintessential aromatics we require for most dishes, but the lingering and pungent smell they leave on our fingers are a pain in the neck.
As most of the scent comes from the natural oils that these ingredients have, you simply need to get the scented oils off your fingers. Forget the hand-soap, sponges or dirty dish-towels. Simply rub your fingers against your kitchen sink, running your fingers under the water as you do so — this should get rid of the smell in seconds. If you do not have immediate access to a sink, simply find an abrasive surface and repeat the mentioned steps above.
5. Devour Chicken Wings in Seconds
While watching TV, you’re probably going to be too lazy to nibble miserably between the bones on your buffalo wings to get to that delicious flesh. What if we told you that you can eat your wings within seconds?
Simply hold up a wing in your hand while maintaining your focus on the screen (like Aerosmith said, you don’t wanna miss a thing). On the meatier end of the wing, identify the end of the upper-bone. Grabbing tightly onto the end of the upper bone (along with the ligaments), twist and pull.
The entire upper bone should come right off, neat and clean. You can then eat your wing right off a single bone like a mini drumstick.
6. Orange you glad you read this?
How does one peel an orange without puncturing the flesh like a clumsy chimpanzee? Don’t monkey around; get a knife and cut the ends of the orange, being careful not to cut into the flesh.
You’ll end up with an orange with two flat ends — it should be able to stand upright. Then, make a vertical cut anywhere along the orange’s skin, again taking care not to touch the flesh.
Get your fingers into that cut you’ve made, and peel the orange open gently. Your orange should open up like a belt, exposing each individual rind while still being attached to the orange husk — no mess, no bleeding oranges, no regrets.
7. The Hand-burger
Burgers are like a boy’s bedroom — messy yet functional. But to prevent your sloppy joe from turning into a soggy joe, do your burger a favour, and eat it upside down.
The top bun of the burger is usually bigger and thicker than the bottom bun. Therefore, inverting the burger as you eat it will enable you to keep all your ingredients intact and prevent the juices from the patty from drenching your bottom bun. (Thank god burger chefs aren’t architects.)
Incidentally, the best way to hold a burger is with 3 fingers on the top of the bun, leaving the thumb and pinkie-finger for the base of the burger. Holding your burger this way will ensure optimal organisation as you chomp your way through.
8. Ice-cold Beer in 15 minutes
We love a good beer on most days, but we love an ice-cold beer every day. Tired of waiting for that beer to chill out in the freezer? That salt-solution life hack not working for you? We’ve been there too, so we understand your frustrations.
This is the hack for all you alcoholics out there. Get a paper towel and drench it in water. Wrap the soaked paper towel around your beer bottle, and leave it in the freezer for 15 minutes. The water in the paper towel will freeze up fast enough, and begin super-cooling your beer in the freezer. The paper towel will also continue to keep your beer ice-cold after it’s out of the fridge. You’re welcome.
9. Pancakes from the Bottle
Pancakes are the perfect breakfast that people of many nationalities enjoy. Whether you like them with maple syrup, blueberries or fried chicken, pancakes are easy to make and so versatile. The one problem with pancakes? You can’t hide the fact that you’ve been making them — the mess gets everywhere!
To prevent your mornings from getting worse than they might already be, pre-make your pancake batter the night before. Thoroughly rinse an empty ketchup bottle and fill the bottle up with your pancake batter. Using a ketchup bottle is also more precise than using a spoon, so you can start making pancakes in all funny shapes and sizes. Ultimately, you’ll be having fuss-free breakfasts — and neater pancakes — for weeks.
10. Ice-cubes aren’t Cool
Ever dropped some ice-cubes into your wine or coffee, then instantly regretted it once you realised you watered down your drink? The days of watered-down coffee and wine are over — the hipster revolution has arrived:
To keep your coffee chilled, pour coffee into ice-cube moulds — dropping these iced coffee cubes into your coffee will not water down your coffee like regular ice-cubes do. To keep wine chilled, simply leave a bunch of grapes in the freezer. Replace ice-cubes with frozen grapes the next time you drink wine, and you’ll be thankful you came prepared.
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