I do the "plain" thing as well. For leisure, I found trousers, underwear, t-shirts and long-sleeve shirts that worked for me and then bought 3-5 of each of them in black, so barring special occasions and if I'm not at work, I always wear the same. This makes life so much simpler, I wish I'd done it decades ago. For work, I have two pairs of trousers, 5 tops (3 short-sleeve and 3 long-sleeve) and 1 jacket that all work with each other, but I'm already looking forward to being able to get rid of those when I retire.
Other lifehacks I have:
*I typically spend at least two nights per week away from home, so a lot of my hacks are geared around that. I keep all my toiletries permanently packed in two washbags, one for stuff that needs to stay dry and one for stuff that doesn't, so I can just toss them in a bag and don't need to pack each item separately when it's time to go. I also keep a small supply of key medication and the teabags I use to help me sleep in my backpack, and I use the same backpack for everything so that I don't need to transfer things between bags.
*I'm terrible, no really, worse than that, really terrible at mornings. I have a recurring appointment on my smartphone with a checklist of the things I need to do to get ready for work, because I know I don't have the brainpower to get everything done in anything like an efficient order otherwise. The appointment reminder goes off right when my morning devotions are due to finish, which also means I don't need a meditation timer ;-) I'm also extremely distractable in my early-morning state, so I watch BBC documentaries while I'm getting ready, because otherwise halfway through getting dressed I won't be able to resist "just quickly checking Twitter", and then it will be at least half an hour later and I will still be in my underwear. I have another checklist for things I need to do when I first get to work.
*I use David Allen's Getting Things Done method to keep on top of my tasks and projects with minimum stress. It's changed my life, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
*I've learned by long experience what kinds of tasks I can fruitfully do at what times, and I don't try to work against that. For instance, small admin-type tasks get done in the mornings, major brainwork in the afternoons. The really hard brainwork gets done on Wednesdays or Thursdays, the merely unpleasant or tedious kind on Mondays or Tuesdays. Dividing things like this also has the advantage of preventing simple routine stuff from getting permanently queued behind the big urgent stuff, which is a problem I often observe in my colleagues (and get frustrated by if the simple stuff in question is something I need in order to move on with some of my own stuff.)
*I keep all my recipes on Delicious, tagged with (amongst other things) the months in which the ingredients are in season. It makes seasonal eating much less of a headache.
I'm sure I have other lifehacks as well, but many of them are so integrated into my routine now that I don't even think of them as hacks any more. I'll try to be mindful over the next few days and see if I can notice any more that might be worth sharing.
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Date: 2013-06-12 01:54 pm (UTC)Other lifehacks I have:
*I typically spend at least two nights per week away from home, so a lot of my hacks are geared around that. I keep all my toiletries permanently packed in two washbags, one for stuff that needs to stay dry and one for stuff that doesn't, so I can just toss them in a bag and don't need to pack each item separately when it's time to go. I also keep a small supply of key medication and the teabags I use to help me sleep in my backpack, and I use the same backpack for everything so that I don't need to transfer things between bags.
*I'm terrible, no really, worse than that, really terrible at mornings. I have a recurring appointment on my smartphone with a checklist of the things I need to do to get ready for work, because I know I don't have the brainpower to get everything done in anything like an efficient order otherwise. The appointment reminder goes off right when my morning devotions are due to finish, which also means I don't need a meditation timer ;-) I'm also extremely distractable in my early-morning state, so I watch BBC documentaries while I'm getting ready, because otherwise halfway through getting dressed I won't be able to resist "just quickly checking Twitter", and then it will be at least half an hour later and I will still be in my underwear. I have another checklist for things I need to do when I first get to work.
*I use David Allen's Getting Things Done method to keep on top of my tasks and projects with minimum stress. It's changed my life, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
*I've learned by long experience what kinds of tasks I can fruitfully do at what times, and I don't try to work against that. For instance, small admin-type tasks get done in the mornings, major brainwork in the afternoons. The really hard brainwork gets done on Wednesdays or Thursdays, the merely unpleasant or tedious kind on Mondays or Tuesdays. Dividing things like this also has the advantage of preventing simple routine stuff from getting permanently queued behind the big urgent stuff, which is a problem I often observe in my colleagues (and get frustrated by if the simple stuff in question is something I need in order to move on with some of my own stuff.)
*I keep all my recipes on Delicious, tagged with (amongst other things) the months in which the ingredients are in season. It makes seasonal eating much less of a headache.
I'm sure I have other lifehacks as well, but many of them are so integrated into my routine now that I don't even think of them as hacks any more. I'll try to be mindful over the next few days and see if I can notice any more that might be worth sharing.