You can really tell a lot about how wise someone is by their ability to give good advice. And there are tons of great tips out there—and this is a post about exactly that.
We are featuring the best life hacks from an online thread where people shared their hard-won pearls of wisdom. Some of these tips are small, others are big, but they all have the potential to improve your life. Not tomorrow, but literally today. Scroll down, and we hope you’re taking notes.
#1
I’m a teacher of over 25 years. The 54321 trick with emotionally distraught children whom are struggling to deal with ‘big’ emotions was a revelation. I’m mainstream but have a lot of ASD / ADHD children and this works great with them.
5 things you can see.
4 things you can touch.
3 things you can hear.
2 things you can smell.
I differ on the 1 thing. It’s normally, ‘1 thing you can taste’ but I go with ‘1 thing you feel’ which usually gets them to share their overriding emotion that is often the one they’re struggling to deal will.
Then, ‘What would help you right now?
Once calm, ‘What could you do to help yourself the next time you feel like this?” I think they need some ownership. Then you can talk about inappropriate reactions etc.
If full on melt down when this just won’t work, I gasp and do a bit of pantomime and say ‘I saw a mouse/frog/fairy/hobbit!’ as a distraction technique whilst we earnestly look for the mythical being. By the time we accept they’ve gone back to their lair/ dwelling, they’ve usually exhausted themselves and are calm enough to talk.
Image source: Top-View7248, Yan Krukau
#2
Put a wooden spoon on top of a pan of boiling water to prevent it from overflowing.
Put a silver spoon in a cup before you pour soda into it, to stop it from overflowing. Works wonders when making an ice cream float.
Image source: Southrngurl1976, furkanfdemir
#3
Put a slice of bread into your airtight container containing brown sugar. Even rock hard brown sugar will soften and stay soft.
Image source: ReadySetGO0, Sticker it
How do you actually give good advice? Well, a big issue that many people run into is that they start with good intentions and genuinely want to help out their family, friends, or coworkers. However, the advice they give gets ignored. Why, though?
Things aren’t that simple. For one, you have to ask yourself whether you’re actually, well, helping the other person. You also have to accept the fact that you might not know how to help someone else—only they do. And that requires setting your ego and desire to look like a know-it-all aside and really start listening to the other person.
#4
I keep a pair of swim goggles in a drawer in my kitchen. I wear them when I’m chopping onions. I haven’t cried in years. At least not when chopping onions.
Image source: Creighcray, BOOM 💥 Photography
#5
For tomato sauce stained tupperware: put in some dawn dish soap, fill with hot water and crumble up a paper towel and drop it in the water. Put the lid on and shake and the sauce releases and clings to the paper towel. Just throw out the paper towel and the tupperware should be stain free. Although I will say with some of my real cheap dollar store containers it doesn’t always come all the way out. I’m assuming something to do with the material or porosity. But even those it still comes out about 95%.
Image source: Jhenry071611, kathycsus
#6
While watching TV – don’t FF through commercials, get up & walk or tidy up, etc etc etc. for the duration of ALL commercials. I never feel guilty watching TV… I get a ton of steps in and lots done… cleaning, prepping dinner, laundry, dusting, vacuuming…….
Image source: MiaMeals2020, RDNE Stock project
According to clinical psychology expert Timothy Carey, PhD, we should perceive good advice as that which helps improve things or make them better.
“So good advice helps a person solve a problem or figure something out or do better than they were doing before. The goodness, then, arises from the results of the advice, not the advice itself. This means that if you want your advice to be appreciated, it has to improve things in some way for the person you’re advising. The fine print here is that it is only the other person who knows if things are getting better,” he writes in a post on Psychology Today.
Carey points out that it’s not the advice itself that is helpful or unhelpful, but following it leads to good or bad results.
#7
Put one or two dry towels in the dryer with your washed, wet clothes. It helps them dry faster and is less strain on your dryer
Put a slice of bread in your container of cookies that were over baked or starting to go stale. The moisture from the bread softens the cookies
Wrap your lettuce in foil, it will last longer
Also putting your fruits like strawberries in glass bowls or jars will make them last longer in the fridge
To eliminate fruit flies, make sure all your dishes are done. The sink drains are clean, the garbage is taken out as well as all food is put away (no potatoes out etc) Put some apple cider vinegar with the mother into a jar with a couple drops of dawn dish liquid, stir it up and set it out without the lid. The flies will go to drink the vinegar and the dish liquid drowns them
Homemade wasp spray is water and dish liquid in a spray bottle. The soap sticks to them preventing them from flying and eventually suffocates them since they breathe through their exoskeletons. No harsh or toxic chemicals to deal with.
Image source: Extreme-Expression59, Sarah Chai
#8
My only party trick is something I learned from Human Anatomy 101 about 15 years ago: try to touch your toes and see how far you get. Next, grab any fat round marker/small rigid ball, basically anything that is hard but can roll back and forth. Put it under one of your bare feet while standing. Rub the sole of your foot vigorously back and forth on the hard rolly thing for about a minute, or as long as you can. Then try touching your toes again! You should get a LOT lower.
All that I remember is that your connective tissue is ALL connected, and there are big swathes of it in your feet and palms, so if you massage the hell outta those areas you can gain some flexibility in other areas of your body!
Image source: tweakletoes, Anna Shvets
#9
A glass bottle wrapped in damp paper towels will chill to a lovely drinking temp within 15 mins in the freezer – remember to set a timer!
Works great for wine.
Image source: jeffois, Natalia Blauth
“It is critical to understand, though, that problems of day-to-day living are only ever individually experienced. We can’t ever really genuinely experience any aspect of another person’s life,” he notes.
“The value of the advice is determined entirely by the receiver of the advice rather than the giver of the advice.”
As Carey emphasizes, it is not the advice giver who makes the advice good. “It can certainly feel good to be giving someone else advice. With just a few crafty sentences, people can feel wise and caring and helpful all at the same time. The confidence and conviction of the adviser, however, is a very poor gauge of how helpful the advice is going to be.”
So, actually good and effective advice will be more focused on listening, learning, and questioning, with a bit less telling or guiding, according to the expert.
#10
When the lid is too tight on a jar 🫙 you can hit the lid’s side with the bottom side of the spoon. Strike it right and the lid opens without straining.
Image source: Technical-Pie-8356, Boryslav Shoot
#11
Ladies: Use cheap hair conditioner as shaving cream for shaving your legs. Makes em super soft! Way cheaper than women’s shaving products and less drying than soap.
Image source: smilingcuzitsworthit, https://kaboompics.com/
#12
Remove mascara with Vaseline. Blend some Vaseline around your eyes as a moisturizer. I done this for 55 years and I have no wrinkles around my eyes. I wish I’d also put Vaseline around my mouth and on my neck, those are my wrinkle sites now.
Image source: ReadySetGO0, Mwabonje Ringa
Meanwhile, Joshua Habgood-Coot, a lecturer in philosophy of language in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds in the UK, stresses something similar.
He notes that it is vital to give the person you want to advise “space to articulate” their goals and experience.
“This allows me to tailor the style of my advice to his situation, rather than offering an off-the-rack solution. The questions I ask are not just politeness or stage-setting; they’re an important part of what it takes to advise someone well,” he explains in a post on Psyche.
“Advising is hard. It’s a complex activity that involves negotiating someone’s difficulty in dealing with a problem and their responsibility for dealing with it. Often, it degenerates into telling people what to do or showing off how much we know. Perhaps if more of us understood advising a little better, we could avoid giving overbearing advice and be more responsive to what other people actually need when they ask for help.”
#13
Using an ultrasonic cleaner on my dental mouthguard. I had to get a clear mouthguard splint thing at night as I was grinding my teeth while I slept, and after a few mornings of trying to clean it with soaking it with a cleaner tablet and brushing it, it was so time consuming and still smelt afterwards and started to yellow. I bought one of the Dental Pod ultrasonic cleaners thinking it was probably all hype and a scam, but it is amazing and works so well and is really easy to use. Now the mouthguard has no smell and looks new again. I use the dental cleaner tablets that come from the supermarket, as the ones they sell with the pod are five times the price, but the pod itself is great.
Image source: NikasKastaladikis, Victor Castardo
#14
Cut the ends off a kiwi, and put a spoon just under the skin (with the indent side of the spoon touching the kiwi) and go around and around. It’ll peel the kiwi..
Image source: SunmerShouldBeFun, Pranjall Kumar
#15
To expand your counter space when cooking, place your cutting board(s) on an open drawer. An old trick my mom taught me as a young kid that I swear by. Everybody I show it to is pleasantly surprised by the tip. .
Image source: donotbeaspoon, FOX ^.ᆽ.^= ∫
After you’ve read through these incredibly cool life tips, share your own in the comments. What’s the very best piece of life advice that you could give someone that will help them out?
What is the top piece of advice you’ve ever listened to that you’re grateful for every single day? What’s the worst or silliest?
Share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas below.
#16
I recently got a cleaning app for the housework. It’s really helpful and motivating. I’m getting more done and I feel less overwhelmed by it now. You decide which tasks you want on the list and the frequency that you want to do them. I can see what still needs doing instead of keep looking at everything and getting nowhere.
Image source: Skinnybet, Ron Lach
#17
I don’t know how this works, but you can extend the signal of your car key fob by holding it against your neck, between the side of your neck and your Adam’s apple. I’ve tested it, it seems to work, somebody showed me how to do it, none of us knows why it works.
Image source: N8-Lux, Mike Bird
#18
Whenever I’m doing something in the kitchen that’s sure to make a mess, I try to do it in or over the sink. Examples: bottles that I’m filling with kombucha, bowls in which I’m using my hand-held mixer, big bowls in which I’m stirring up casseroles, etc. BTW, it goes without saying that I’m the world’s biggest klutz.
Image source: BabciaLinda, Алексей Вечерин
#19
Wrap a paper towel around your sandwich when keeping it in a ziplock bag. It keeps the moisture from making the bread soggy.
Image source: serenitybyjen, https://kaboompics.com/
#20
Rubbing Vicks Vapo Rub on the bottom of your feet, then socks, stops a pesky cough at night….it works!
Image source: Gigmeister, Rachel Claire
#21
Instead of going for orange juice for a cold do pineapple juice instead.
Image source: kcyar, Roger Brown
#22
Mine is bag balm. When I say it to people they don’t know what it is unless they have worked with animals. It’s a green can of antiseptic lanoline salve. Farmers put it on the cows teats to heal them fast when they are sore from milking.
I have used it for the following.
Cuts
Rashes
Sun burn
Intense hair treatment to moisturize
Wrinkles
Dry feet, elbows and hands
Blisters
Hot spots on my dog
On my saddle to condition it
On leather shoes or purses..sparingly
When used on cuts or abrasions it also takes alot of the pain away instantly.
Image source: love2drivealone, Juhan Sonin
#23
This is gonna sound weird, but I found a trick for whenever I get that pressure feeling in my inner ears and it works! I get a lot of ear infections and always have since I was a child. When I was in my teens I remember I had a severe ear infection and I put cotton balls in my ears. Whenever I have sinus pressure or feel like I have swelling in my ear canal I just put a small cotton ball in each ear and sleep with them in. I tell everyone who complains of ear pressure. Obviously this is not a guarantee, but if you catch it in time, it might just help!
Image source: Giggly_Witch, RDNE Stock project
#24
If you’re evacuating for a storm, or perhaps traveling while your hometown is expecting poor weather, sometimes you come back home and are unsure if you lost power (or if you did, for how long). This can impact the safety of the food in your fridge, for example. One way to determine this is to freeze a cup of water prior to tour departure, and then place a small object (like a coin, for example) on top of the frozen water. When you get back, depending on where the coin is, you’ll be able to see if your freezer lost power/warmed up.
Image source: viennawaitsfornoone, Anna Shvets
#25
If you’re ever dealing with constipation (learned this while pregnant), get peppermint essential oil and put a few drops into the toilet bowl before sitting down. It works!
Image source: NyaBye, Christin Hume
#26
If you stop eating sugar, your pms symptoms improve significantly.
Image source: strakalas, Sora Shimazaki
#27
To get into the habit of flossing, floss first then brush your teeth.
Image source: EyeNonothing22, Sora Shimazaki
#28
Eating a spoonful of peanut butter gets rid of hiccups.
Image source: gardengirl85, Adrianna CA
#29
Put a dry paper towel in with clean, washed, drained lettuce and herbs, seal in ziplock bag. Lasts so much longer.
Image source: ReadySetGO0, Thanh Long Bùi
#30
Store marshmallows in the fridge to keep them from getting hard
Store honey on top of the fridge. The heat keeps it from crystallizing.
Image source: LindsE8, Rebecca Freeman
#31
To keep grilled cheese sandwiches from getting soggy, put 2 layers of paper towel on the plate first. You can serve the sandwich while it’s fresh and hot, but the bottom doesn’t get soggy from condensation.
Image source: Ordinary_Fix3199, Ahmad Khan
#32
Use Nair hair remover on your feet to make them super soft. Leave on for 4-7 minutes.
DO NOT APPLY TO TOE NAILS as it will weaken them.
Be careful when getting in the shower though because it makes your feet so smooth that they become slippery.
I’ve also applied Nair to my Grandpa’s super thick toe nails to thin them out a bit so we could cut them.
Not sure if this could be bad for whatever reason, but it was a huge help to get those tree climbers cut down!
Image source: Waterfowler000, https://kaboompics.com/
#33
If you have hiccups, put a napkin or paper towel over the top of a cup of water. Bend forward from the waist, and chug the cup of water “backwards” (meaning tilt it toward your mouth from under your chin – the opposite angle from the way you would normally drink). Something about the amount of mental focus needed to accomplish the task combined with the way you need to regulate your own breathing while doing said task works like a charm. Every time. Has never failed me or anyone I’ve suggested it to.
Image source: Bucolic_Hand, Lisa Fotios
#34
Damp towels under wood cutting boards can damage them over time, or even damage/discolor your countertop depending on the type of material it is. Instead, get a roll of the super cheap non-skid-pad-thingies they make for small rugs or cupboard shelves. Then you can just cut pieces slightly smaller than your board(s). Won’t damage the wood or counter!
Image source: drunkenCamelCoder, Michael Burrows
#35
You can stop a sneeze by gently caressing the roof of your mouth with your tongue.
Image source: CloseCalls4walls, Edward Jenner
#36
I suppose germophobes would be horrified, but I don’t use toilet cleaner. I take any “empty” container of a soap related product–shampoo, body/hand wash, laundry detergent, spray cleaner, dish soap, dishwasher detergent–and pull off the top, run water into it, shake it up to loosen the remaining product, and pour it in the toilet. Then scrub well and flush. Don’t mix more than one product. Almost all products will foam up, and they usually smell pretty good.
Image source: kathinmaine, https://kaboompics.com/
#37
Dry, crusty feet or hands?
Get Bag Balm (square green tin) and apply before bed, then wear cotton socks/gloves to sleep.
Wake up with super smooth and soft hands/feet.
Image source: Waterfowler000, Shannon McGee
#38
If you need to chill a can quickly wrap a wet paper towel around said can and pop in freezer for a few minutes.
Image source: mrshenanigans026, Huy Phan
#39
Sticking your tongue out while cutting onions keeps your eyes from watering.
Image source: scripted_ending, mali maeder
#40
Pressing tongue against palate to stop brain freeze.
Image source: Fei_Liu, https://kaboompics.com/
#41
When my kids have someone come play and any space in our house gets trashed I tell them, “go pick 30 things up” and because they can keep track and do it quickly- there is zero whining about it. Usually they say, “I did 55!” Bragging about more cleaning. But it also only takes 1-2 times to clean it up and they realize it just looked like a bigger mess than it was.
Image source: TechnologyLower6959
#42
Put the rubber grippy shelf liner under the cutting board. You get a small gap and you can slide your scraper underneath so it’s always ready to clean or scoop with.
Image source: Breakfastclub1991
#43
Honey for hiccups. Have hiccups? Swallow a spoonful of honey, and they instantly go away.
Image source: Quirky_Sympathy3911
#44
Talking out loud to do your to-do list. Makes your brain take it more seriously – or maybe just makes it scared.
Image source: Autozen_guide
#45
If you ever encounter a full, old-fashioned, glass Heinz Ketchup bottle, look at the glass for the number 57. To get the ketchup out easily, hold the bottle with one hand, point it at the food, and hit the 57.
Image source: decidedlydubious
#46
Hold the can a quarter turn from where you usually do to pour your beer without too much foam.
Image source: andythetwig
#47
If you’re WFH and struggling to concentrate / get stuff done – just put your shoes on. I swear it just makes you feel more put together, even if you’re still wearing pyjamas!
Also, if you’ve been wearing heels all night and want to stave off achey feet and blisters in the morning, moisturise your feet! Saves a lot of pain. Volterol gel on the soles of your feet also stops them hurting in heels! Dance the night away!
Image source: c_j_g_
#48
Ants are the indicator we aren’t keeping the kitchen clean enough. As soon as I do that, they go away and only come back when I’ve slacked off again.
Image source: RecentEngineering123
#49
Microwave corn on the cob with husks on, cut off at the stem side, grab the silk and they slip right out of the husk. It put corn on the cob back on the rotation.
Image source: WyndWoman
#50
Drops of cooled, freshly brewed black tea will abolish eye infections.
Image source: CreateADemand
#51
When you have some leftover ready made salad in a bag., put a piece of kitchen roll half in and half out of the bag and don’t seal it. Won’t go off for much longer.
Image source: Jaybee021967
#52
If you get a drop or two of your blood on clothes or linens, spit on it to remove the blood. The enzymes in your saliva remove the blood from the fabric. It’s brilliant.
Image source: Icy-Plantain-1719
#53
When spraying cooking spray say on a cookie sheet or pan, open the dishwasher door and do it on the open door. Next time you run it, any overspray is on the door and gets washed off!
Image source: runnr90
#54
Keeping a small sack in the freezer for odd bits from the cutting board and meat packaging in order to prevent bugs and smells to conserve bin liners. alongside, rinsing food tins, I almost never have to empty the bin, and everything that goes in is non-recyclable dry waste until there’s just enough room for my sack, then out it goes. I don’t bother with chicken supremes, frozen pies, or any of that sort of rubbish, so there’s always plenty of room.
Image source: RosebudDoyle
#55
Everything folds better in thirds – towels, linen, t-shirts….
Image source: DrScribbls
#56
If something takes less than 2 minutes just do it.
Image source: Cadowyn
#57
Sour Patch Kids stop hiccups.
Image source: Affectionate_Hornet7
#58
Don’t need to buy new plants, propagate them with water.
Image source: AbbreviationsNew2058
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