At the least you’ll make yourself feel a tiny bit better, and as long as no one sees you grinning at the screen while reading this they wont think you’re crazy either.

I’m smiling as I write, but I don’t know if it will affect / infect you through the digital ether.

Smiling is free, it is pleasant, and you can share it with everyone you know, and even some you don’t.

Hang your smile on someone else’s face. Share it!

One example for myself is in eating more fruit. I know that I know about its goodness, yet I know I don’t fully realise that goodness in my diet.

So this Life Hack is more of a Sensible Hack. After all, it makes sense to do what we know will get good results in the long term.

It has now become a morning ritual to start off the day with at least one fruit. So with breakfast done, I’m at least part way through this Sensible Hack of the day.

It makes sense therefore to cycle more, particularly on short journeys. Often this can be done door to door, with no time wasted on searching for parking, walking between stations, or bus stops even.

There is the added benefit of having the journey count as calorie burning exercise too, which is a big boost if you’re on a diet.

Put more cycling in the travel cycle and the benefits will keep rolling in.

Our biceps at the front of the upper arm tend to be much stronger than the triceps at the rear, probably because we use them to lift against gravity. Yet two thirds of the upper arm size is attributed to the triceps.

Strong triceps can be the difference between just “falling over” and “falling over and conducting improvised dentistry”. So to keep teeth in place if going on an unexpected ‘trip’ regular press-ups can help.

Again rather cheekily, if I wake up in the morning face down, I only have nine left to do after I get up.

Building increased fitness each and every day by a modest amount of exercise is a simple process.

You don’t have the time to go to the gym/workout/exercise/whatever-else? I have found that, if I replace the time spent thinking about this with action, I can actually do a modest amount of exercise . The effect of the exercise rapidly accumulates over a number of days.

Why make the investment in exercise? The return on the investment is quicker recovery time if injured, and better ability to deal with the stresses of life.

The stomach muscles are responsible for many body movements and by doing at least ten sit-ups per day I enable the tower to grow daily.

After getting up in the morning I’ve only nine more left to do.

With time we slowly lose the flexibility we once had, but the loss is gradual. So gradual in fact, that we may only notice the lack of flexibility when trying to do something we did a number of years before. Then we realise the gradual loss has accrued to quite a significant amount, such that we are now unable to complete the activity, or do so with increased difficulty.

With each passing day we lose a minute amount that the act of stretching will ensure we retain. Stretch each day and give the gift of flexibility to an elderly person – that is, to yourself in the future!

(A useful site with stretching exercises I stumbled into is http://www.thestretchinghandbook.com/ )

Happy baby, happy parent, and happy family.

The first of these is a method of quickly tying shoe laces.

Sprintcuts: Speed-Tie Your Shoes

…my other shoes use velcro fastenings.

Well if your desktop is even slightly similar you’ve probably got your email open right now too, or perhaps some other software programs. Each is vying for space on your monitor screen. Working on multiple tasks means switching dancing between these windows. Minimize, maximize, shuffle, shuffle, and close.

What if you could have all your communications (email, Skype, etc) on one screen, your work on another, and your you-know-what on yet another? You would just need to swap between screens rather than multiple applications.Virtual desktops enable this ability, and I’ve tried a few over the years. They are very useful to group together related programs according to task. Perhaps one desktop for researching information, one for designing, another for gaming, etc.

One such program is Dexpot for Windows operating systems (OS) and is entirely free for individual use.

After installing (there’s a portable version if you don’t want to install) you can increase the effective area of your monitor by 400% by default, right up to 20 times – that’s a whopping 2000% increase in monitor size! Worth the price of a quick download for those extra inches.

The first of these is MyLifeOrganized (MLO) task management software. OK great, but what does it do?

It enables synchronization of task management between windows devices, including windows mobile.

Recent work has joined the Research In Motion (RIM) company’s Blackberry, and Apple’s iphone devices to the platforms of use, making it easier to manage tasks on the move with a wide range of devices.
The software allows practically infinite depth for subtasks. Something many competitor applications seem to lack.
Being very flexible, it can convert between several task management software formats.

The to-do list allows the specification of contexts, and filtering to display the to-dos according to their context, such as listing to-dos according to your current location.
It also can output a pocket mod to Microsoft Word document.  This has been found to be very useful for checking off the list of Life hacks posted.

All in all a very useful software programme, and highly recommended for outlining plans.