241 Shares Most iPhone apps are terrible: they don’t do much at all and what they do actually do, is usually the duplicate functionality of a hundred other apps that already exist. Most of them barely even do that very well. I may be a little harsh: while some people I know have maxed out their home screens and filled each and every one up with apps, I only use about eight apps.
We’ve looked at what you can do with home automation and what sort of methods exist for installing automated functionality, and now it’s time to take a look at some of the popular software applications out there for controlling your home automation system. I haven’t included any software that ships with various systems in this list; you’ll find out about those when you’re looking at individual systems and deciding on one. What’s listed here are some well-respected and popular choices that enthusiasts around the world are using.
31 Shares In Monday’s article, we discussed the various ways home automation can make life easier. Today we’ll look at the primary commercial methods of automating the home—a true and grand lifehack, in that it hacks the primary habitat in your life! At the end of the day, there are two main methods of home automation. The most popular is probably most popular because it is most affordable, and that’s plug-in automation provided by companies such as X10 (warning: annoying flashing lights if you follow the link) and Insteon. You plug these devices directly... More »
90 Shares Over my next couple of articles, we’re going to take a look at home automation. This is a fascinating area that is, for some, a reality, but for many, something that borders on science fiction. The truth is, there are all sorts of products out there to help you automate elements of your home, ranging from those that the average Joe can afford and implement to those that cost as much as the house itself. Today, we’re going to find out why home automation is worth bothering with (or not, depending on... More »
41 Shares It’s tempting to go looking for a bargain when it comes time to stock your home office with equipment. And there’s nothing wrong with looking for a bargain in itself; if you find a high quality item on sale, by all means, get it now – don’t wait until it goes back up! But buying certain items just because they’re cheap is a no-no. These are the items that you’ll be using every day as you begin to work at home and you need to make sure they’re top notch – or... More »
863 Shares Note taking is as ancient an art as any. There are hefty tomes on the subject of how to best capture and organize information in a swift and legible manner and courses devoted to the subject in colleges. And yet, the most popular suggestion in our Skribit widget, which you can use to suggest articles for Lifehack authors to write, is on the question of whether to use digital or traditional methods of note taking. It seems that the mountains of existent information haven’t yet caught up with the modern age, addressing... More »
13 Shares In Getting Things Done methodology and most other personal productivity systems, dividing projects and large tasks into the smallest tasks divisible is considered a basic, fundamental concept. These systems tell us to divide a task into individual actions until we get close to a point where we can’t break things down into any further actions. The point is to focus the brain on something small enough to tackle right away. When we write up our task lists and throw in a fairly large task or project, we’re all prone to procrastinating on... More »
80 Shares One day, an innocent worker goes online and decides to see if there are any tips out in the big wide world on getting more done, more quickly, more often. But soon, the poor sod becomes entangled in a complicated trail of information; a few quadzillion blogs on the subject, millions of books, and a whole lot of fancy terms like “ubiquitous capture” and strange rituals such as weekly reviews and inbox processing.
28 Shares If you’ve been obsessed with the productivity space for any length of time like those of us here at Lifehack, you’ll no doubt have read more than your fill on the topics of attention and distraction. They work together, a bit of a yin and yang, neither inherently bad or unwanted, but both requiring management and balance. Attention is required to complete creative work—and I don’t mean creative work in terms of just songs, stories and paintings, but anything that requires you to create something and produce a tangible result. It also... More »
35 Shares Have you ever known someone who consistently fails to complete things? Have you ever known someone who always gets the job done on time? I’m sure you have. In fact, I’m sure most people you know fall into one camp or the other. Which one of these two types of people are you? There’s a reason that 99.9% of people fall into one of these two camps, but not somewhere in between. How many people have you known that are just as likely to get things done as they are to let... More »
204 Shares There are two approaches to “prioritizing” the tasks in your to-do list that I see fairly often. By prioritization, I’m not talking so much about assigning importance to tasks, but deciding which will take chronological priority in your day—figuring out which tasks you’ll do first, and which you’ll leave to last Approach number one involves tackling the biggest tasks first and getting them out of the way. The idea is that by tackling them first you deal with the pressure and anxiety that builds up and prevents you from getting anything done—whether... More »
We all have trouble areas in our lives. No matter how many you seem to knock off, there are always more to deal with. That’s not a bad thing, and it’s not a self-defeating attitude so long as you look at life as a journey in self-improvement. If we reached a point where there was nothing left to improve about ourselves, we may as well take a dive off a tall building; it’d be the only thing left to experience. Everything else would be pedestrian. Good thing it’s not possible to reach... More »
71 Shares According to GlobalRichList.com, I’m in the top 0.82% richest people in the world. That’s not to brag, though. Almost everyone with the means to read this post is in that top one percent somewhere. But there are billions more people out there who are not in the top one percent, and they’re not in the top two or three either. The majority of our planet is living in poverty. Economic crises (and the accompanied fear mongering) aside, we sometimes look at the world as a prosperous place with a few unfortunate pockets... More »
156 Shares Often when an individual decides to fix up that area of their life that has to do with getting things done, they make extensive changes to themselves; the way they act, the way the run their lives, the way they behave and communicate with others. And sometimes, the “productivity machine” — that is, the massive industry out there that promises to tell you how to solve all your problems with time and tasks — turns these people from happy, friendly people, into… well, I’m sure that kind of language is uncalled for... More »
Sometimes, I think I’m way too anal about some things. According to some of the comments on my previous posts, you agree. But nothing beats how much of a Nazi I am when it comes to my iTunes library. Sure, I know the clamor is coming; iTunes sucks, use (insert alternative software here) instead. I’m on a Mac as I write this, I own an iPhone and an Apple TV and a few other Macs are planted here and there around the house. So it just makes plain sense for me to... More »
