Spend Part of Each Day Ignoring Email
When we last collected weekly updates from our staff , our editors were installing our own bidets, cutting back on caffeine, and protecting themselves from exercise-induced injuries.
This week we cleaned up and cleaned up the clutter, found small ways to get away from ourselves during the day, stopped our obsessive email checking, and cooked at home on a snowy day in a slow cooker.
What updates have you made this week? Let us know in the comments.
Use command interceptors to clear up clutter
My partner started keeping more and more things with me, including a lot of jackets and hats, so I broke down and got a few Command hooks to keep the jackets from touching my chairs and doorknobs.
Claire Lowe, Food and Beverage Editor
Include self-care in your news feed
This tiny update: I subscribed to @tinycarebot on Twitter. Every hour or so, he tweets a reminder, such as “Take a moment to play a song that will make you feel happy, please.” It’s nice to have these little breaks while I scroll through my feed.
Beth Squarecki, health editor
Use a snowy day to cook a meal for the week
I took full advantage of a fake blizzard this week with this slow cook butter chicken recipe . Not only did my apartment smell of spices and butter all day (mmm), but I still use leftover food.
alisia adamchik, staff writer
Get the leap from this whole spring cleaning thing
I cleaned the whole apartment in the spring. Got rid of TONS of clothes (Tons = 2 full trash bags). We quickly figured out what to keep, donate, and throw away. This not only freed up a lot of space in my closet, but it also reminded me to wear clothes that I would otherwise have forgotten about.
Joel Kahn, Senior Video Producer
Don’t let your mailbox own you
I unpinned the email tab. Now I just open it every hour or two and process a dozen emails at once. (Lifehacker’s internal communication happens on Slack.) Next week, I hope to be down to three openings a day.
Nick Douglas, staff writer
Learn from your mistakes Ikea
This week I decided to buy a new IKEA drawer box to hide under the table so all the junk I keep on the table can fly away. Naturally, it came with a side panel ripped up – both a design issue and an aesthetic annoyance considering how much I paid for those wacky drawers. How long did it take to discuss this issue with IKEA over the phone? OVER AN HOUR. Next time, I might just spend that hour driving back and forth to the local IKEA – at least I’ll get the meatballs out of the bargain. And, probably, a new ANTAGEN. In theory, this was an upgrade, and now I have improved my methods: I’ll just go to the damn store.
David Murphy, Senior Technical Editor
Plan your vacation time aggressively
I became quite consistent as a morning meditator, but I also wanted to make time to do this at noon and tried my best to make it happen. This week I have set a daily reminder on my phone that will make me meditate around lunchtime. This did not mean that I did it every day, but it definitely increased my success and pushed me in the right direction. Eventually, I hope I get enough of the habit that I don’t need digital reminders, but so far the nudge has been really helpful.
Virginia K. Smith, Editor-in-Chief