People who think about hacking their lives and their work often speak of “granularity.” It’s a curious word. The online Oxford English Dictionary offers only “granular condition or quality” as a definition. A more helpful definition comes from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications: “The extent to which a larger entity is subdivided…

For Mac OS X users, Quicksilver is probably one of the best god-send productivity applications. What’s it? It’s a launcher and indexer which you can do actions and interfaces with software and applications with just keystrokes away. Getting started on Quicksilver basic is easy. There are some hidden powers and advanced features that you may…

Trust is an essential component in almost all dealings between human beings, other than outright hostile ones like wars and terrorism. It is certainly vital for the proper running of any organization, as well as for almost all the components of trade and commerce. Lack of trust between trading partners undermines the proper functioning of…

(photo by Drunken Monkey Photography). I thought I’d explain a little more in detail about how I plan my life, and what tools I use to achieve my goals. I like to separate my thoughts on planning and organizing into two levels: upstack and downstack. I often talk about Getting Things Done (GTD)…

Once in a while, I receive emails with long paragraphs. After I read through an email like that, I usually ask myself: “Okay, does he mean this, or that?” There was a time when I sat down and read through my archive in my mailbox and tried to understand the difference between huge emails and smaller…

If you’ve had six different jobs in the last 18 months and the only thing that is the same at each job is you, there may be a problem. Unless you’re doing research for a book entitled “How to Lose Your Job in Ten Days.” If you are some of the following may be some great information…

One of the biggest reasons people have problems succeeding in life is they don’t show up. You can’t complain about a party, if you didn’t even go. They get an invitation every day to this party, but instead of showing up, they complain from afar on how they’ll never be able to go. Success is what…

Being on time or early cures a whole lot of ills, don’t you agree? I have been traveling a lot (partly why I haven’t been writing my head off for Life Hack lately, sorry), and so I’m faced with that wonderful US Airport experience of the TSA security process. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thankful…

I have two topics this week: the present-day obsession with clinging grimly to the status quo, when we have rarely needed change and entrepreneurial flair so much; and the obnoxious jerks whose presence in leadership positions disfigures too many organizations. These topics are linked by a recurring theme: the way that Hamburger Management—that dismal system…

There is evidence that shows that by keeping yourself engaged in things that you enjoy can actually increase your self-confidence and true worth. If you are doing things that you enjoy and are with people who are absorbing, life will tend to be more fulfilling as an individual. If you already do not know what enthralls…

There are lots of methods and techniques for making decisions. One of the most commonly used is the pros versus cons list or risks versus rewards. This type of list helps make a clear distinction about what benefits a choice offers, and also what you have to lose. To make it easy, I put together a…

First, I must confess this is not all my work. I have a friend who sends me little snippets of things like this on a regular basis. This one was so good I wanted to share it with all the Lifehack community. Second, I must also admit that in my youth I have worked in phone…

At my current day job, email takes fair bit of my time. That’s why I find every opportunity to optimize my email workflow. I have been using @Reply, @Wait, and @Read folders for actionable emails and those can save me countless hours on searching those action required emails. I have been testing my workflow…

Our lifehack.org reader, Roman Rytov asks an interesting question on email management. Roman starts with an example from David Lorentzo where David has gone to the extreme and plans to delete all of the cc’ed emails in his inbox: Hi folks, Wonder what your opinion on the matter is. David Lorentzo suggests getting rid of a Blackberry and…

Sometimes it’s really hard to save time in emails (especially emails in corporate emails which really needed to reply). I used to scroll through and search the Inbox for email I need to reply. What a time wasting to wait for the search. After I hit Sent and Receive buttons, I then receive couple more…