Setting Up Your Home Office

Text replacement tools, also called snippet managers, are one of those productivity tools everyone needs even if they don't know it. They let you paste any text you want in just a couple of keystrokes and are perfect for anyone who finds themselves typing the same information again and again (so basically, anyone who uses a computer). Whether you answer the same customer question multiple times a day for work or find yourself constantly telling friends about the parking situation at your house, it's handy to have a quick way to paste long bits of information. The Mac has a decent text replacement tool built in, which I mentioned when I talked about how I fixed my worst wr…

"Cognitive restructuring" isn't as culturally popular as its therapy-speak peers, like "toxic" and "gaslighting," but it's a powerful tool pros use to help people adjust their thoughts. Though it's usually something you go over in therapy, you can still employ some principles of cognitive restructuring in your everyday life to stay more upbeat and productive. What is cognitive restructuring?The American Psychological Association (APA) defines cognitive restructuring as “a skill for carefully examining your thinking when you are feeling upset or distressed about something.” The goal is to change how you think in moments of stress so that your thoughts can become more balan…

I don't really use AI. At least part of this, I think, is the user interface most large language models (LLMs) are presented in: the chatbot. I never think to open a dedicated window and ask a fictional person for help—I find it a clumsy way to interact with a computer. Why can't the AI help me in the places I'm already working? That's the idea behind Cotypist, a (currently) free Mac application by developer Daniel Gräfe that adds mobile-style autocomplete to every application on your Mac. The tool, which uses an offline LLM running on your device, requires an Apple Silicon processor (16 GB of RAM is recommended). While you're typing, predictive text (in gray) appears to …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. It's a potentially concerning sign of the times, but my morning is dictated by my apps. On an average day, I start off by putting in a mobile Dunkin' order, checking my sales on Poshmark and my rentals on Pickle, and playing the New York Times games before shifting over to the more serious work apps. As of last week, I added a new app to the morning mix: Finch, which is sort of like a to-do list mixed with a Tamagotchi. My ultimate goal with this whole morning app rotation is to resist the siren call of social media and, with it, an unproductive start to the day. This app, I reasoned, would help me be even more productive …

The Find My Device app for Android is getting an update: The new Find My Device app is now split up into two tabs, one for Devices, and one for People. With it, you can easily coordinate meet-ups with friends or check that your kids have safely arrived home. You'll find the app preinstalled on Pixels, and it's a free download for other Android devices. It's also available on the web, but there's no iPhone app. Despite that, you can still keep tabs on the real time locations of your contacts if they have iPhones—more on that in a moment. The new People tab in Find My Device. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. I’ve reached a state of eating that I shall call “Deep Winter.” I know there are much colder environments in the world, but my weak New York City constitution makes it impossible to have fun out in the 20-degree weather. I prefer to stay indoors, comment on the snow like a Progressive commercial, and cook hot comfort food. If you share any of these inclination…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Pomodoro technique is a superstar in the world of productivity methods because its premise—that you should work hard for 25 minutes, then reward yourself with a few minutes off—is effective and appealing. But that doesn’t mean it works perfectly for everyone. Like any other method, it’s adaptable and, once you get the hang of it, should be customized to meet your unique needs. And if you find that Pomodoro's 25-minute work sessions with five-minute cooldowns aren’t cutting it for you, there's a similar but more flexible alternative: flowtime. What is the flowtime technique?The flowtime technique is a spin on Pomodoro,…

If you use WhatsApp, you may be targeted by scammers looking to take over your account by pairing their browser to your number. This scheme, dubbed GhostPairing by researchers, uses WhatsApp's device linking process to allow fraudsters to access all of your messages, impersonate you in chats, and perpetuate the scam to your contacts. Here's how threat actors are hijacking WhatsApp accounts—and how to defend yours. GhostPairing manipulates WhatsApp device linkingWhatsApp allows users to link their desktop or browser to their account without needing to enter login credentials in one of two ways: scanning a QR code and approving the session or confirming a numeric pairing c…

How you allocate and use your time every day is as important to productivity as the work you actually do, which is why it's important to pre-plan your schedule down to the minute. You have to be smart and strategic about when you work, what you work on, and how long you do it—otherwise, some of your time may be wasted. Illich’s Law, or the Law of Diminishing Returns, says that after working for a while, your productivity decreases—then becomes negative. What does Illich’s Law mean?We often think of being productive as getting a lot done, but productivity can—and should—also focus on the quality of that work, too. Some good work is, in most cases, better than a lot of sho…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. My sweet tooth has been nagging me lately. I expect this is because I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables and my dopamine hormones find this to be disrespectful. I like veggies, but I'm only so powerful to resist the call of sweets. In one of my bookstore browsings, I came upon a cookbook with hefty slices of lemony-looking pie with a chocolate crust scatter…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. Cookbooks don’t really teach you how to cook. Instead they offer a collection of recipes that you (hopefully) like. If you find one, though, with recipes that serve as inspiration for adapting and modifying to create even more new recipes—well, that’s a real gem. The cookbooks I find myself going back to time and again make a wee inspiration library. Sometime…

My Spotify liked-songs playlist is not exactly listenable on shuffle; there are simply too many genres and moods in there. Luckily, there's now Liked Songs Manager—an online service that automatically sorts your liked songs into playlists based on whatever criteria you like: genre, decade, or even mood. To get started, head to Liked Songs Manager and sign in using your Spotify account. You'll then see a list of criteria you can use to create playlists. I recommend first clicking the Analyze songs per playlists at the top of the screen—this will show you how many songs in your liked list are available in each category. You can then browse the categories and check any that …

I've been trying to get back into playing guitar and I've noticed one thing: Both the App Store and Google Play are replete with guitar-tuning apps that are full of either upsells or advertisements. Isn't there any application that helps tune your guitar without bothering you? It turns out, there is. LikeTones, a music-education company, offers a guitar tuner for Android and iPhone that's both free to use and free of ads and upsells. You can open this application, play a string on your guitar, and start tuning. The application automatically detects which string you're trying to play and tells you whether to tune up or down. If you'd rather not use this automated tuning, o…

It’s been a minute since Lifehacker looked at the slang of Generation Z—long enough that Generation Alpha has had time to develop and spread some of its own special buzzwords and jargon. Below is an alphabetized collection of slang taken from both Gen Z and Gen A, in case someone younger than you says something you don't understand. As with all slang, if you need an online list to know what a word means, you are too old to say it aloud. 304: Hoe. (Type "304" on a calculator and turn it upside down.) 4+4: Ate. Four plus four is eight, or "ate." (See "ate") Alpha male: Taken from animal ethology, an alpha male is the dominant member of a group of males, or just a male who …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. I’m always happy to see new cookbooks on the scene, but in truth, most weeks I’m flipping through my archives; revisiting older books I’ve picked up along the way. Some cookbooks I keep because they’re a treasure trove of reliable recipes (like this one), and others I keep because there are a few dishes in there that I’ve always loved. One of the latter is Miet…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. Another Italian cookbook—I know. But trust me, you’ll want to be here for this one. Milk Street Backroads Italy is a cookbook that may make you question some of your “rules” about cooking Italian food. Constantly stirring polenta? Adding slabs of mozzarella to your eggplant parm? Loading Italian wedding soup with meatballs? While I will probably continue putti…

Different productivity hacks work for different people, which is why there are so many of them. But if you happen to be a visual learner, there’s one in particular that might be suited for you: mind mapping. Mind maps are diagrams designed to organize information and data points that relate to each other, making everything you need to do easier to follow. They're particularly popular for students who need to visualize how the concepts they're studying link together, but they have wide applications outside the classroom. What is a mind map?A mind map isn’t just a diagram that lays out tasks. Rather, it does so in a hierarchical way, connecting things that are related and …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. I cook on a daily basis (no surprises there), and most of the time, the meals I make hit the spot. But there are some special meals I make that spur a spontaneous exclamation from my partner, or make me shake my head in disbelief that all of my intentions for this dish have been realized. The meal I made yesterday did exactly that, and the recipe was from Paki…

The next phase of AI evolution looks set to be focused around agents: AI bots that can not only chat to you and draw pictures, but also carry out tasks on your behalf. These new AI tools won't just be able to tell you about the best hotels close to your next vacation destination—they'll be able to make the reservation for you. These kinds of multimodal agents are being worked on by Google, OpenAI, and others, and now Perplexity has announced Perplexity Assistant for Android (as per The Verge, Perplexity says iOS doesn't give apps the necessary hooks into the operating system for an iPhone version to be possible right now). You can find the assistant in the main Perplexity…

There are many easy ways to launch apps on your Mac. You can click an icon in the Dock, use Spotlight Search (or better alternatives), or visit the Applications folder and fire up your favorite apps. None of these methods are as fast and as fun as launching apps with Pieoneer, a launcher that lets you add your favorite apps to a radial menu. It also has two other useful features—a built-in app switcher and an easy way to surface hidden features of your favorite apps. Using Pieoneer as an app launcher Credit: Pranay Parab This i…

Say what you will about AI (and I've said plenty) but the progress in transcription and speech-to-text software is genuinely impressive. Whereas before such software was either clumsy or expensive, there are now all kinds of great open source tools that work well. Which brings me to Pipit, a free Mac dictation app that works offline, meaning it's totally private. Even more interesting, it can be used to do more than just transcribe speech—it can launch apps, toggle settings, and even launch a web search or query an AI service. The first time you open the application, it will ask for permission to use your microphone before downloading the Parakeet model for offline transc…

There’s nothing worse than seeing the perfect house and finding out it’s already the object of a bidding war. As mortgage rates remain high and inventory remains low, the competition for homes is only getting more intense. If you’re looking for a house and you’ve been frustrated at how quickly they sell, or you’re struggling to find houses that meet your needs, there’s probably an untapped resource you can take advantage of: pocket listings. What's a "pocket listing"?A “pocket listing” (sometimes called an “off-market” listing) is a property for sale that isn’t listed in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). That means that while a real estate pro is actively trying to sell…

If you don't like how the internet makes you feel right now, you're not alone. The entire ecosystem seemingly exists to manipulate you, which can make finding clarity hard. I've written about how to avoid anxiety bait, which can be an important step toward healthy and productive engagement, but an important step is recognizing when you're being manipulated. RageCheck is a potentially useful tool here. Built using concepts from social science research, this website can analyze any link or screenshot. It points out examples of potentially manipulative language, from us-versus-them framing to emotionally loaded phrasing. "The system analyzes text for linguistic patterns comm…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Rockstar fans might be all-in on waiting for GTA VI, but Grand Theft Auto is far from the only big title the company makes. One of Rockstar's most impactful games, Red Dead Redemption, turned 15 in May. All these years later, it's still very much worth your time—if critics and fans have anything to say about it. On Tuesday, Rockstar announced some big news for the first Red Dead: First, anyone who owns a copy of the game for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, can now upgrade to the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch 2 versions for free. That includes upgrades like 60 fps, upgraded visuals, support for HDR, and 4K r…

From security and privacy concerns to good old-fashioned cringe, there are all kinds of reasons you might want to delete your old social media posts. And there are plenty of tools for the job out there. The problem: most tend to focus on one or two social media networks. Redact, however, is a paid tool with support for deleting posts on 28 different services. You can use it to scan for old posts and choose what to delete, or you can search for posts that mention specific topics. It can also be used to delete posts on a schedule—this is perfect if, for example, you wanted to delete all Bluesky posts a month after you post them. It's a lot of power, basically, and it runs l…