A life hack (or life hacking) is any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

and

efficiency Efficiency is the often measurable ability to avoid wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time in doing something or in producing a desired result. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things well, successfully, and without ...

, in all walks of life. The term was primarily used by computer experts who suffer from

information overload Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, information anxiety, and information explosion) is the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue, ...

or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming.

History

The original definition of the term "

hack Hack may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game * ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia franchise ''.hack'' Music * ''Hack'' (album), a 199 ...

" is "to cut with rough or heavy blows". In the modern vernacular it has often been used to describe an inelegant but effective solution to a specific computing problem, such as quick-and-dirty

shell scripts A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file man ...

and other

command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

utilities that filtered, munged and processed data streams like

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

and

RSS feeds RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many d ...

. The term was later extended to ''life hack,'' in reference to a solution to a problem unrelated to computers that might occur in a programmer's everyday life. Examples of these types of life hacks might include utilities to synchronize files, track tasks, remind oneself of events, or filter e-mail.

Popularization

The term life hack was coined in 2004 during the

O'Reilly O'Reilly ( ga, Ó Raghallaigh) is a group of families, ultimately all of Irish Gaelic origin, who were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred a ...

Emerging Technology Conference in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

by technology journalist Danny O'Brien to describe the "embarrassing"

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

and shortcuts productive IT professionals use to get their work done. O'Brien and blogger Merlin Mann later co-presented a session called "Life Hacks Live" at the 2005 O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference. The two also co-author a column entitled "Life Hacks" for O'Reilly's ''Make'' magazine which debuted in February 2005. The

American Dialect Society The American Dialect Society (ADS), founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society p ...

voted ''lifehack'' (one word) as the runner-up for "most useful word of 2005" behind ''

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

''. The word was also added to the

Oxford Dictionaries Online Lexico was a dictionary website that provided a collection of English and Spanish dictionaries produced by Oxford University Press (OUP), the publishing house of the University of Oxford. While the dictionary content on Lexico came from OUP, ...

in June 2011.

References

{{reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite web, url=http://lifehacker.com/software/interviews/interview-father-of-life-hacks-danny-obrien-036370.php, title=Interview: father of "life hacks" Danny O'Brien, publisher=Lifehacker.com, date=2005-03-17, accessdate=2010-03-11 {{cite web, url=http://www.craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt, title=Cory Doctorow's notes from Danny O'Brien's first Life Hacks presentation, accessdate=2010-03-11 {{cite web, url=http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4802, title=O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2004, date=1999-02-22, publisher=Conferences.oreillynet.com, accessdate=2010-03-11, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070918035304/http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4802, archivedate=2007-09-18 {{cite web, url=http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2005/view/e_sess/5958, title=O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2005, publisher=Conferences.oreillynet.com, date=1999-02-22, accessdate=2010-03-11, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070910143756/http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2005/view/e_sess/5958, archivedate=2007-09-10 {{cite web, url=http://makezine.com/lifehacks/, title=Life hacks, publisher=Makezine.com, accessdate=2012-07-01, url-status=dead, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120527175904/http://makezine.com/lifehacks/, archivedate=2012-05-27 {{cite web, url=http://www.americandialect.org/Words_of_the_Year_2005.pdf, title=Words of the Year 2005.pdf, format=PDF, accessdate=2010-03-11 {{cite web, url=http://www.today.com/money/nsfw-zomg-twittersphere-added-dictionary-122978, title='NSFW,' 'ZOMG,' and 'Twittersphere' added to dictionary, publisher=today.com, accessdate=2015-10-22

External links

Other examples of anti-technology life-hacks? , Ask MetaFilter

Life Hacks talk
from Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka Hacker culture Life skills Personal life 2000s neologisms

History

Popularization

See also

In fiction

Techniques

References

External links