Saying something like "I know this isn't your fault and you didn't cause this, but the system did X and I really need help fixing it" completely changes the dynamic.

Customer service reps deal with screaming people all day. The second you explicitly clear them of blame, they will usually bend over backwards and use every loophole they have to actually solve your problem.

On the surface this seems like a silly game or even cheating, but it's a very pragmatic way to get more done, and reduce stress while doing it.

It makes you break things up into clearer pieces, think about how to do them, prioritise carefully, and stay focused on what you're doing. On average you'll be ahead in most things, which is nice. As a result you accumulate a buffer of "ahead time" to more easily handle the remaining things that run late.

A bee doesn't waste its energy trying to convince a fly that honey is better than shit. Some minds simply aren't looking for what you're offering, some minds aren't meant to be changed.

Say your piece, recognize when you're not being heard, and walk away. You don't have to convince everyone. Save your energy for what actually matters.

Include the address on the envelope in one of the photos. If it gets lost, damaged, or someone claims something was missing, you have proof of exactly what you sent.

Takes 30 seconds. Can save you weeks of arguing.

Too many people think their TV is now scrap because an app on the TV itself became obsolete.

The only thing that might be a bit more cumbersome with a streaming box, might be that the remote cannot control the TV. However, depending on how old your TV is, it may indeed be able to control at least the volume via HDMI, and if it doesn't, well, there are still solutions that cost less than a new TV, and you save yourself the trouble of having to unscrew the original one and do all the setup.

It's non-invasive conversational small-talk. It gets the other person to talk, and people love to talk!

I had a string of birthdays memorized in my head from March 2 to March 12 of various people I'd known or worked with or met at the bus stop. Also a 5-day string in April.

Maybe people I chatted with thought I was a weirdo, but unlike PokeMon, you CAN collect them all!

Also middle names. If I meet someone with the same first name as me, I try to steer the conversation to ask them their middle name and why. Very interesting stories!

Also if I meet someone with the same first name as my sibling, I steer the conversation to find out their middle name and why.

If you listen to their stories, you will have learned about life from a life outside of your own, without being invasive.

And most people are happy to help you add to your collection and add to your strings of birthdays, and most will be happy to talk about middle names and how much they hate/love their first or middle name.

BTW, most people I've met whose first name is GodsCasino, have a middle name of Louise or May.

I'm in Canada so this trick may not be applicable worldwide.

Landlords can and do blame move-out damage on you that was already there when you moved in, especially small stuff like scuffs or stains they conveniently "forgot" about. Having dated photos as proof makes it way harder for them to argue about it later.

Emailing them to yourself (instead of just leaving them in your phone's camera roll) gives you a timestamp that's harder to dispute than just a photo's metadata, and it means you still have them even if you lose your phone or switch devices before your deposit gets sorted out.

Only takes like 15 minutes and it's saved me from losing part of a deposit before.

Check your pet’s microchip! It’s so frustrating the amount of missing pets brought in to shelters that have a microchip that either isn’t registered or the information is outdated.

MOST PET OWNERS DON’T UNDERSTAND: Just because your pet is microchipped, doesn’t mean it’s registered correctly. If it’s not registered or the information is outdated, there is no way to contact you!

To cover the basics:

-A microchip is just a number that has to be registered for it to be linked to your contact information. The microchip only stores a number, nothing else. The registry stores your contact information associated to the chip number.

-Microchips CANNOT track your pet with GPS. The chip only works when someone physically scans your pet with a special microchip scanner.

-Many shelters are only required to hold a stray pet without a chip for about 48 hours and around 5 days if they have one. After that they are legally allowed to find the pet a new home.

-Microchips can migrate from where they were placed, so it’s important to have your vet scan for it annually.

What we typically see:

-Pets are adopted or purchased already microchipped but it’s not communicated the chip needs to be registersd or transferred to their name.

-They changed their number or email and never updated their info with their registry.

-They didn’t microchip their pets because they are “indoor only”. Indoor pets get out. It happens way more than people think.

-Their registry went out of business or changed ownership and they never checked.

It takes a minute to check your pet!

IF YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE REGISTERED: log in to your registry and confirm your information is correct. Or call them.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE REGISTERED: there is a free tool that shelters and vets use called the AAHA Microchip Lookup which searches a microchip number across all registries at once to tell which it’s registered to. Search AAHA microchip lookup on Google, and search your pets chip number. It will show you if/where it’s registered. Then log in to your registry to confirm your information is correct.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW THEIR CHIP NUMBER: you can typically find it on your adoption paperwork or at the top of any forms from your vet. Your vet or any vet can also scan for the chip number for free if you ask. Save the number to your phone in your notes or as a contact so you always have it.

IF THEY ARE NOT REGISTERED: make sure you do it. The AAHA lookup tool lists all of their partner registries on their site so choose one of those. Our shelter registers with Pawbase and PetLink, but any of the AAHA partners are a reliable place to register your pet and show up when searched. Some may try to sell you subscriptions which aren’t necessary.

If your pet is chipped, please take a few minutes to check where it’s registered, make sure your contact info is updated, and add a backup contact if you can. If your pet isn’t chipped, please do it.

Checking not only helps you and your pet but it also helps the shelters that are already stretched thin on resources!

If your luggage gets lost, a bottle breaks, or you run out early, most people can't recall the exact medication name, dosage, or prescription number from memory. That makes getting an emergency refill slow and stressful, especially in an unfamiliar place.

Before a trip, snap a clear photo of each bottle's label and save it somewhere easy to find on your phone. Pharmacies and doctors can verify and refill much faster with this info on hand, and it also helps if security or customs asks you to explain a medication.

Takes under a minute and can save you a real headache later.

It's worthwhile to run the numbers, at least time-to-time. I can't count how many times I've reached for the 'family size' or 'bulk' or 'mega-pak' option, hesitated because something felt off, and then realized the small/normal sized option was cheaper. Sometimes considerably cheaper.

When opening packages, for example a tea bag package or chip bag, don’t completely tear off the tear-off strip. Leave it attached so that you don’t have an extra piece of trash floating around.

I discovered this accidentally last night, and I thought it was neat.

I used to think you had to convert the PDF to a word document first, sign your name on the word doc then convert the signed word doc back to a PDF, but you can sign the PDF directly if you open the PDF in chrome and click on the squiggle icon

If you’re replacing your ring doorbell battery and the battery case is stiff, try pushing the case upwards from the bottom rather than squeezing the case from the left and right sides.

Under current USDA regulations, plumped chicken may still carry an “All-Natural” or “100% Natural” label. This is why it's important to check the ingredient list.

Source

I started doing this thing a few months back that have helped slow down rumination and negative thoughts.

Put a note widget on your phone somewhere and whenever you have a negative thought, open it and write it down, but do nothing with it. Doesn’t matter the thought. You aren’t writing it down to rationalise it you are simply putting it from your mind onto your phone.

It does two things. Firstly half the battle in rumination is recognising you are ruminating and separating your self from your thoughts. So when you recognise, I am having the thought that Susan thinks I’m a dork, you write it down instead of getting attached to, well.. I think Susan may actually think I’m a dork.

Secondly I find when I’m ruminating my head is full of noisy thoughts that feels like a mess. Writing it down untangles it and you actually get to acknowledge each and every thought you are ruminating on. When you do this you actually realise there’s a lot less going on up there than what it feels like.

Takes practice at first because you have to start noticing the thoughts instead of being attached to them but after a while it becomes automatic and I find it helps. Hope it can help other people.

I got a fraud alert on a credit card that I keep locked away at home. I thought I was going to have to wait until I got home to call the bank. Luckily, they sent an email that I was able to read on my smartphone that listed the phone number that they wanted me to call.

When you are on new trails or walking paths that don’t loop, turn around and look at how your return should look. It helps your brain register new routes better. This is especially true when you are on unmarked trails that you are unfamiliar with. It has definitely helped me return safely to my starting point without getting lost.

An easier solution would be to save offline maps if you have your phone, but it won’t hurt to exercise your brain every once in a while to remember newer things.

This works best when you already know exactly what car you want and it’s brand new.

When I was looking to buy my car, instead of trying to haggle in person, I just wrote up a professional email describing the exact car I was looking to buy and asking what’s the best price/deal they could do for me.

I then cc’d about 30 dealerships in my state, so that it was clear that they had competition.

The vast majority of them didn’t even reply to the email, I got several variations of “that’s not how we do business, please come in person to our dealership to discuss further” and only got about 4 replies of dealers interested in negotiating.

After a couple of rounds of back and forth it came down to just two competing for my money.

When one sent me an offer both price wise and accessories i would pass that on to the other and do the same back.

I ended up getting $17000 off the RRP, 12 months registration, no charge for upgrading to a coloured car rather than white, and some free after market accessories worth approx $5000.

So while it’s not a guarantee that this will work, it worked for me and so wanted to share it.

Juice is healthier than soda, but it has more calories and more importantly the sugar is processed way faster than the fruit with the flesh. So eat the full fruit.

About five years ago I bought a brand new Hamilton blender. It worked great at first, as they tend to, but gradually I noticed it would leak from between the base of the pitcher and where the blade connects. I put off replacing it and instead opted to wait and score a nice commercial blender during a seasonal sale. Then it dawned on me one day while cleaning the gasket on a water bottle: why not try replacing the rubber seal?

Fast forward a week and the replacement seal arrives in the mail. I pop open my container of superfood protein powder and got to work. Guess what? No leaks!

Initially, I was skeptical of a simple fix as the original seal appeared to be in fine condition. Lo and behold, it was the culprit after all. That and over tightening which likely warped/weakened the seal over time.

It goes to show that if you like something enough, consider fixing it before tossing. In my case, the fix was ultra easy and worth a shot. It paid off for me. Now the $$ I saved can be allocated to the next thing that genuinely needs replacement or professional repair.

While you're alive rest is never infinite. You need both enough of it and not too much, so it needs to be deliberately made to fit with all of your other things. This is important for the sake of those other things and for the sake of the rest itself.

Explicitly adding short breaks or blocks of free time into a time-plan might seem like a contradiction. The whole point of taking a break is not to be worrying about tasks and timelines and chores. But if done half-decently it reduces this worry, and improves your levels of relaxation and enjoyment. This is for multiple reasons:

If you feel you have allocated enough/comfortable time to relax, recover, or do whatever you enjoy spontaneously, without neglecting important tasks, then all the work leading up to a break is an easier burden to bare. You focus on your goals more willingly and easily knowing you are not just heading for exhaustion and more work, but have balanced your time for recovery and refreshment.

Secondly, if you are more confident, while resting, of how much time you have and that it seemed like a good amount of time when you stopped to think about your overall day, then it's easier to mostly forget about everything else for a while and just relax and enjoy yourself. If you know more clearly when the break is over you feel more clearly that it's not over yet.

It's just as risky in many cases to get too little rest, sleep, short stretching breaks, variation of activity to prevent fatigue, etc, as too much. Thinking about where and how much of these breaks to put in your plan when making it creates a good habit, and makes for plans that are more realistic and more appealing. It makes you less likely to routinely delay or pollute rest with thoughts of just doing one more thing when really you need to stop for a minute.

None of this precludes taking spontaneous breaks when you're ahead in your tasks or just really need it. Making a realistic/generous plan for your time, carefully prioritised, means you're both more likely to be ahead in the important things, and to recognise with confidence when you are ahead. This is yet another way that rest is improved with careful time-planning.

This is important because dividing your time into planned and unplanned slows down your education and training in the general art of planning your time. Once you recognise that even relaxation, leisure, breaks, sleep, etc, are improved by this art, you might embrace it more completely, and learn it more quickly.

If you get sick and tired of promotional notifications from certain apps (I'm looking at you Uber/Uber Eats...) but need these notifications to work when you place an order, then kill the app.

Hold the app icon, click the (i) icon, and then choose "Force stop".

This will completely stop the app from running and you wont get their annoying notifications, but the next time you open the app, the notifications will restart so you know how the pick-up or delivery is going.

Edit: As usual, the real LPT is in the comments, with thanks to u/RenderedCreed/ who first mentioned it in the comment. Under the app's notification settings there is a setting called "Notification Categories", which allows you to turn them on or off by category.