Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. We might not live in a Jetsons-like future with robot maids and flying cars, but we do have the technology to transform our standard houses into futuristic smart homes. There are some very compelling reasons to do that, including having more control over your environment, increased automation for repeated tasks, and even improved security. But smart homes—and the devices that comprise them—have one enormous downside: privacy. Smart home devices work by allowing access over a network, and as a result, every single smart device in your home, from the lock on your door to the light bulbs in your fixtures, is a potential weak …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you've got the funds and the need for more than one computer on your desk, then you may well want to use the same mouse and keyboard for both of them. It's more convenient if you're switching between systems, and it means you can find a keyboard and mouse combination you love and stick to it throughout. This is particularly helpful if you're working on a laptop and a desktop in tandem. Even the best laptops tend to have cramped keyboards, just through the limitations of the form factor, and a mouse is often preferable to a trackpad for several tasks (such as detailed image or video editing). Sharing your mouse and keybo…

Lifting is about as simple as an exercise gets: You pick the thing up, and you put the thing down. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to walk into the gym and just pick the thing up. A proper warmup can help you to be ready for your lifting, so let’s talk about how to build your best lifting warmup routine. Why a warmup is important (and when it may not be)First, let’s talk about why we warm up. People often talk about warmups as if they will magically prevent injury, or that skipping one will result in some other disaster. That’s not necessarily true. They also won’t really do much for your chances of suffering from soreness (or not) after the workout, either. If you fe…

If you don't yet have a REAL ID, you can continue to fly, but it's going to cost you. Beginning Feb. 1, 2026, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will start collecting a $45 fee from travelers using non-compliant forms of identification at airport security checkpoints. The agency previously proposed a fee of $18 to cover the administrative and IT costs of ID verification for those traveling without a REAL ID or passport but increased the total to $45 in an announcement released earlier this month. REAL ID requirementsThe 2005 REAL ID Act mandated the standardization of state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards. After multiple delays since 2008…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When I wrote about adding baking soda to ground beef for better browning and moisture retention, the readership was starkly divided—those who think this chemical reaction is pure snake oil, and those who want to know immediately how to apply this technique to hamburgers. Well, for those of you mapping out your Memorial Day weekend grill game, saddle up. This very real chemical reaction is indeed perfectly suited to improving your summer burgers. How does baking soda make meat tender? Baking soda reacts with the proteins in meats, whether ground or not, preventing them from winding up as tightly as they normally would when …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Amazon Big Deal Days is October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best bargains, based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools. Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. You have to be careful with sales; retailers will often jack up the prices before …

While Apple has offered password management solutions for years, it was only this past fall that the company finally rolled out a dedicated passwords app, appropriately named "Passwords." It's a bit basic, but it's built into the OS, and it gets the job done. (It's also free, which helps.) If you're fully into the Apple ecosystem, it's an easy way to create, store, and access the passwords of your numerous accounts. However, as it happens, Passwords has a critical security flaw that Apple only recently addressed. Here's the situation: Passwords has a security feature that helps you change an account's password directly within the Passwords app. This is particularly helpfu…

When I switched to a Mac about a decade ago, I immediately fell in love with my MacBook's menu bar, and especially the various icons in its top-right corner. I've always enjoyed keeping useful menu bar apps there, such as clipboard managers, app launchers, or apps that update other apps. But unfortunately, if you've installed more than a few third-party apps on your MacBook, your menu bar might be pretty cluttered. It's nothing a quick clean-up can't fix, though, and now macOS ships with a few ways to help fix your messy menu bar. Remove apps from the menu bar …

YouTube Premium is expanding its list of paid-only features—at least, for those who are willing to experiment. In a blog post this week, the company announced a handful of new experimental features available to Premium subscribers. These features, while not enabled by default, can be switched on from youtube.com/new, and can be used until they expire. In addition, YouTube also announced a sneak peek at a feature in the works, as well as a Premium discount for Google One subscriptions. Higher-quality musicYouTube Premium is adding a new high-quality audio bitrate for music videos. Now, songs can be up to 256kbps, matching the highest audio quality found on YouTube Music…

Lift heavy to build muscle: That’s advice you’ve probably seen in a million places, whether you're aiming to get stronger, get "toned," or simply reap the health benefits of putting on a little muscle. But how heavy is “heavy,” and how do you know if your workout qualifies? There’s no specific number of pounds that will constitute “heavy” for everyone. What’s heavy for a teenage girl picking up a dumbbell for the first time will be a lot less than what’s heavy for a pro strongman. (If you do want to compare your lifts to other people's, sites like Symmetric Strength can show where you stand—but please consider these comps as just for fun.) In basic terms, training “heav…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. The next Amazon Prime Day—or at least the Prime Day-like fall event known as "Prime Big Deal Days"—will take place Oct. 7–8. As you're checking out all the best deals, you might be tempted by Amazon's "affordable monthly payment system." Also known as "buy now, pay later" (BNPL), its pitch is alluring: Buy what I need now, and pay later, "on your own timeline." But as convenient as it sounds, you should think twice before using buy now, pay later options for Prime Day. While BNPL plans can allow you to pay f…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Power tools make everything easier and your finishes more professional. You might think that connecting those power tools to an app on your phone via Bluetooth is an unnecessary upgrade—why in the world does your power drill need to be connected to your phone? The truth is that Bluetooth-connected, “smart” power tools offer a lot of real advantages, and you should definitely start thinking about upgrading your tools to include them. More controlThe biggest reason smart power tools are a good investment is the increased control they offer. If you’ve ever wasted time experimenting with the torque settings on a drill (and the…

If you're trying to get your finances back on track—and who isn't?—you're sure to see "no-buy months" and "low-buy years" all across social media. No-buy challenges ask participants to eliminate all non-essential purchases for a set period. While the concept seems straightforward, these challenges often fail because they don't address the psychological aspects of spending or provide realistic frameworks for long-term financial habits. I've written before that sticking to a budget can feel a lot like sticking to a diet. A strict approach is not only too difficult to maintain, but it can backfire. The all-or-nothing mentality is frustrating and demoralizing, and you might …

Sleep can be a mysterious process even under ideal conditions, but when you’re in a completely alien environment like a hotel room or other temporary lodging it can become seemingly impossible. But if you take a little control over your environment, you can get more—and better—sleep no matter where you find yourself at night. Make the space feel more like homeStudies have shown that aspects of our home environment like sound and smell can help us be more relaxed and and happy when we’re away, so replicating those aspects of your life in an unfamiliar spot can help you sleep: Sound. If you normally sleep with a white noise machine, bring it with you when you travel, or fin…

When it comes to managing your finances and taxes, consider advice from TikTok with a hefty grain of salt. Certain tax "loopholes" may go viral, but that doesn't mean they're good for your specific tax situation. TikTok's bite-sized videos have a habit of distilling nuanced tax strategies into just a few sentences—a recipe for misinformation. This advice is lightly misleading at best, and totally inaccurate at worst. Blindly following this advice could cost you in penalties, back taxes owed, and a tremendous hassle. Let's take a look at the questionable TikTok tax advice I've seen and how you can make sure it doesn't lead you and your money astray. Hiring your kids Some v…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Your home is under constant threat from the elements—but especially from water. From roof leaks to burst pipes—water damage is the second-most claimed loss on home insurance policies, just below “wind and hail.” In fact, there are way more losses due to water damage than fire. And the most troubling aspect of water damage is how silent it can be. You can have a leak for a long time before the damage becomes bad enough to notice. And even if you know you have a water leak somewhere, locating it can often be difficult because water can travel a long way from the source before making its presence known. That’s why you need th…

MacOS is great in all kinds of ways, but it's far from the most customizable operating system out there. Sure, it's not locked down to the extent iOS and iPadOS are, but compared to Linux and even Windows, macOS really doesn't let you change the look and feel very much. But that isn't to say there's no room to tweak the operating system to make it the way you like—if you know where to look. Here are a few third-party tools that let you make macOS your own. Use a custom cursorIt's pretty easy to change how the mouse pointer looks on Windows and Linux—you just need to dig around in the settings. On macOS, you can only change the size of the pointer. Unless, that is, you ins…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Housing is getting smaller and more expensive—which means many of us are putting our mental energy into making our existing homes work for us even if they’re bursting their seams with stuff. From storage unit strategies to time-honored ideas like making sure every stick of furniture comes with bonus storage capabilities, we’re all trying to cram two houses’ worth of stuff into one house. If your house appears to be at full capacity and you just don’t have any more room for shelves, cabinets, or anything else, you have one move left: Start literally carving storage out of the bones of your house. There are hidden voids ever…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Recently, a few spots on the hardwood floors in my house have become mysteriously slippery—so slippery that they're kind of dangerous. I really feel like my feet might go out from under me when I walk there, and there were a few close calls before I started avoiding them (or at least bracing myself to walk over them more carefully). This is no way to live, so I started looking into solutions, starting with the root cause. Why your wood floors are suddenly slipperyTurns out it’s not uncommon for hardwood floors to become spontaneously slippery, and it can happen for a variety of reasons. Wax or polish: If you apply any kin…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Living in a comfortable, heated house is something a lot of us take for granted. When the cold weather hits, we just put on thick socks, turn up the thermostat (or take other steps), and go about our business. But most modern homes rely on the electrical grid to keep that heat flowing. Even if your home is heated by natural gas or heating oil, there’s most likely an electric component to your heating system. That means that when the power goes out—say, in the middle of a fierce blizzard—so does your heat. Even recently built homes can lose interior heat pretty quickly, dropping to uncomfortable (and even unsafe) temperatur…

There used to be a clear progression in home ownership: You bought a “starter” home when you were young, built equity, then cashed in when prices rose and leveled up to something bigger, newer, or with the features you really want. And if you bought a house that didn’t live up to expectations, or if your situation changed without warning (hello, unexpected third child!), you would list the place and move to a better option. But increasingly, that seems like an artifact of a bygone age. It’s easy these days to feel “stuck” in your current home—because of that amazing mortgage rate you locked in years ago, the eye-watering cost of a house these days, or some other issue. If…

Despite all of the technological advances that have made our lives so comfortable and convenient, from on-demand movies to smart devices that can be controlled from a handheld computer in our pockets, there are still some primitive situations we have to endure. For example, that seemingly endless time spent shivering in the shower while you wait for the water to heat up. Or that painful moment when you go to wash your hands and water that feels like it’s being pumped directly from the Arctic splashes you. Waiting for the water to heat up is an age-old problem caused by simple laws of physics: Your water heater is far away from the tap or shower head, and it takes time to …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The USB-C charging port is likely to remain ubiquitous on phones for the foreseeable future—at least until the engineers at Apple figure out how to make the long-rumored portless iPhone—but this little socket is more versatile than you may have realized. Here are four other ways to put your USB-C port to use, no matter what your make and model of phone—from freeing up space on your handset to boosting your on-the-go productivity. It's almost like adding extra superpowers to your handset. Attach external storage Both iOS and Android have integr…

Lately, I’ve noticed my grocery money isn’t going quite so far, especially with meat. I’ve needed to change things up a bit. Specifically, the chicken that I usually toss into my salads, pasta dishes, and soups, well, I’m swapping it out for slabs of fried cheese. Is it weird? Maybe. But I love an excuse to eat cheese, and it’s really working for my wallet. Let me start by saying that my household consumes a great deal of chicken. What can I say: It’s a wonderful bird. And when you’re buying multiple pounds of it, and if it’s the bougie air-chilled chicken that I like, you can see how this quickly ends up being unaffordable. While my problem may be the price of chicken, …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The much-anticipated successor to Garmin’s Forerunner 965 was announced today, and it’s a $749.99 watch called the Forerunner 970 with voice calling, triathlon coaching, and an LED flashlight. Alongside it, instead of a simple upgrade to its little sister the 265, we get a watch at an entirely new place in the Forerunner lineup: the Forerunner 570 ($549.99). Read on for the most important new features, and my first impressions on whether it’s worth splurging on either one compared to the older models. Both will be available to order on May 21, 2025. A primer on Garmin’s confusing model namesJust to help you keep your beari…