Setting Up Your Home Office

I am a frequent user of Google's NotebookLM, an AI tool that functions similarly to ChatGPT and other LLMs, but only pulls from sources and materials the user inputs. I noticed a few days ago that it has a new feature: A research function divided into "fast research" and "deep research." After playing around with it a little, these new features seem to completely defeat the purpose of why I started using NotebookLM in the first place—with one big exception. What the new "fast research" and "deep research" options in NotebookLM doIn short, "fast research" and "deep research" make NotebookLM work a lot like other AI tools—they pull information in from the web on your beha…

If you're in the market for a laptop, you have no shortage of choices. But unless you need something with exceptionally powerful hardware or are operating on a very tight budget, I'm here to end your search right now: You should buy the M4 MacBook Air, especially while it's on sale for $749 before Black Friday. M4 MacBook Air $749.00 at Best Buy $999.00 Save $250.00 …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Black Friday sales probably have you deep in your Christmas shopping already, but don't forget we've got another holiday to get through first. And while nothing gets you in the mood for the holidays like a good Christmas movie, there are a host (no pun intended) of Thanksgiving movies too. Now, there are plenty of films with Thanksgiving vibes (family gatherings and cozy fall colors), but you have to dig a bit deeper if you want that holiday specificity. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles gets mentioned overwhelmingly when people are asked about their favorite Turkey Day movie, in part because it's a legitimately good, but a…

Have you ever woken up and been filled with immediate dread because the day ahead of you is so busy? It happens to me all the time and is, frankly, a miserable way to greet the morning, setting an equally miserable tone for the day. It simply does not set you up to have a positive experience or be productive. There’s a way to quickly right the ship, however, and turn all those tasks into motivation. It’s called a “brain dump” and you should try doing one in the morning to have a more productive and peaceful day. What is a brain dump?A brain dump is similar to a brainstorm, except you’re actually (figuratively) dumping the contents of your brain. In this case, you’re dump…

Want to block ads on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad? wBlock is quickly becoming my favorite solution: it's free, open source, fast, and customizable. Ad blocking is in a weird place. Google, the company that makes more money from advertising than any other on Earth, is actively working to make ad blockers worse on Chrome while it also makes it harder to block ads on YouTube. Basically, it's a good time to not use Chrome. So it's nice that Apple users have another choice: Safari. And, as luck would have it, Safari has an extremely efficient API for ad blocking built right in. The ad blocker wBlock uses this, and the result is ads are blocked in a way that doesn't slow down your…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Gone are the days when you watched one Christmas movie a year, and it was either about a guy trying to jump off of a bridge or a child setting traps to kill the two grown men who want to murder him. Now there’s a lot more where those came from—many of them available for streaming on Netflix year-round. Here are some of the best the streamer has on offer during the festive season—however early or late yours starts. (And while this is a roundup of holiday movies, yes, it’s heavily skewed toward Christmas; Netflix’s current offerings are heavy on Santa and light on everything else.) Champagne Problems (2025) Minka Ke…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The PlayStation 5 Pro’s price has finally eased up a bit, dropping to $648.99 from $749.99, which is the lowest it has gone on Amazon so far according to price trackers. For anyone who has been eyeing a console upgrade but didn’t want to spend full price, this discount makes it easier to consider. Sony - PlayStation 5 Pro Console - White $648.99 …

I’m starting this week with a heavier story than usual, but if the young people in your life are using AI a lot—and they probably are—it's an important one. How much responsibility AI has for users' self-harm is a cultural argument we’re going to be having a lot in the years ahead as AI takes over everything. But the rest of the column is lighthearted, so sorry in advance for the mood-swing What is TikTok's "Devil Couldn't Reach Me" trend?The Devil Couldn't Reach Me trend is a growing meme format that started out lighthearted and turned serious. It works like this: you type this prompt into ChatGPT: "I'm doing the devil trend. I will say 'The devil couldn't reach me,' and…

I am not a morning person, and I never have been—well, unless I have to make money. For years, my start time at my old job was 5 a.m. and, against all odds, I made it in every day. Now, I teach a 6 a.m. spin class twice a week after being moved off the more-tolerable late morning shift. Until a few months ago, though, I was sleeping through every alarm on all the other days, even though I knew I should be getting up and going to the gym early as a solid way to start my day. It took me a long time, but I have managed to force myself into being the kind of person who is up before the sun and done with my daily exercise routine before my friends are even out of bed. Here's e…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you think of “power hour,” you might think of a drinking game, but what we’re about to discuss is kind of the opposite of that—sorry! "Power Hour" is also a specific productivity hack. It comes from Adrienne Herbert’s book, Power Hour: How to Focus on Your Goals and Create a Life You Love and asks you to devote an hour a day to working hard on your biggest task—or the thing you care about the most. I'm skeptical of self-help and productivity books in general, but I do recommend this one because its insights are valuable and novel. Don't have time to read it right now? No big deal. The need-to-know concepts are below. …

AirDrop is one of Apple's best features. I use it on a daily basis to share files between my various Apple devices, but it really shines when I'm sharing stuff with other people, or vice versa. It can be tricky to find a quick solution to send larger files. Emails have too low a file size limit, chat apps can compress files, and cloud storage can fill up fast, but AirDrop is simple, built-in, and reliable. It even works with Android now, albeit just the Pixel 10. If AirDrop has one flaw, it's that it's not particularly easy to use with strangers. Apple has changed how this side of AirDrop works over the years. For the longest time, you had two AirDrop settings: "Contacts …

For as useful as emails are, they sure have a way of hampering productivity. Not only do endless emails bog you down and keep you stuck in a loop of endless replies, but the stress of even having to wade through both the important messages and the junk is enough to make you avoid your inbox altogether. There's a reason "answer emails" is always the example I use for a tedious-but-important task when I'm explaining more complicated, detailed productivity techniques. But there are smaller techniques you can apply directly to email management, too. To stay on top of your work, school, and personal correspondence, you need a productivity plan, but it doesn't have to be intens…

There are a lot of methods to try in the never-ending quest for a way to sort through and slim down our bulging inboxes. They're different enough that there's certainly one out there that matches or comes close to matching your exact needs, but they do all have one thing in common: They rely on the chronology of when each email came in. Let’s try turning that approach on its head, and instead, sort by sender to weed through the mess. Why you should sort your inbox by senderWhen purging your messages, you probably have an organizational system you follow, like the 4Ds. You go through and decide what gets deleted, done, delegated, or deferred—but there’s not much pattern re…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sony ULT Field 5 is currently $191.95 on Amazon, down from $349.99, and that price drop is what finally makes this speaker feel properly positioned. Sony ULT Field 5 Wireless Portable Bluetooth Speaker $191.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $158.04 …

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…

Since the days when Google Gemini was still called Bard, it's been able to connect with the company's other productivity apps to help pull context from them to answer your questions—but you still had to connect those apps to the AI manually using extensions. And even after bringing your apps together, you usually had to tell Gemini where to look for your data to get much use out of its abilities. For Instance, if you wanted it to pull information from your emails, you might have started a prompt with "Search my email." Now, Google is making it easier to connect Gemini to its various services, and adding "reasoning" when pulling context from across your Google Workspace. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The first of a trio of Alice Feeney thrillers getting streaming series adaptations, His & Hers is a glossy, brisk and, perhaps most importantly, twisty Netflix mystery starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal. Thompson plays Annie Andrews, a has-been news reporter who decides to get back on the horse when she learns of a murder in her Georgia hometown. Bernthal is the local detective on the case and—surprise!—he's also her ex. His & Hers is a big hit for Netflix, and a particularly buzzy and bingable example of the form. If you're looking for more of the same after finishing the last episode, here are a dozen more…

Part of the fun of watching sports is that you don't know what's going to happen. TV shows and movies follow story beats, meaning you can usually get a sense for where things are heading, but sports do not work that way. The totally unexpected can, and does, frequently occur—and that's the reason people keep tuning in, whether their team is dominating or an underdog. Sometimes, though, you can't catch the game live, but still want a bit of that feeling. That's why leagues offer extended highlights, featuring all the key moments, complete with the commentary from the broadcast. These can feel almost like watching the full game, and I love catching up with them the next day…

Something you don't see every day: a sports tech company actually giving away premium features for free. Suunto's route-planning tool lets you create and download GPX files without even creating an account. No paywall, no trial period—just open the page and start planning routes. And the tool itself works great. What you can do with the Suunto RouteplannerThe tool packs in everything you'd expect from a paid service, and then some: Route creation that uses different map types (outdoor, satellite, even specialized ones for winter and avalanche terrain) Routing that optimizes for your activity (running, hiking, cycling, mountaineering, roller skating, and more), using actua…

The Mac menu bar is a bit of a mess. Way too many applications want to put icons in the top-right corner of the screen, and most users only want to see a fraction of those. This is a particular problem on recent MacBooks, where the camera notch blacks out a chunk of space right in the middle of the menu bar. This is why applications for cleaning up the Mac menu bar are so popular—the clutter can feel overwhelming. Here's the thing, though: You probably don't need to leave applications like that running constantly. You can hide icons in macOS' Settings, then use a free tool once to move all the icons closer together. Here's how. How to hide icons in Mac System SettingsTaho…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Your first day in the gym can be pretty intimidating. I remember spending a whole semester in one half of my university’s gym because the other room was, I don’t know, scary. And if you haven’t been to the gym in a while—or ever—you probably have questions. So let’s talk through the very, very basics. What is a gym even like inside?Hey, great question! There are different kinds of gyms, so there isn’t a single, universal answer. I’ll assume you’re going to what’s sometimes called a “commercial” gym, one that caters to a wide variety of people and has a selection of cardio machines, weight-training machines, and dumbbells.…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Robot vacuums can get expensive quickly, especially as you move into models with features such as self-emptying bins and hot-water mopping. But if you’re looking to dip your toe into this world without dropping major cash, the Roborock Q7 L5 robot vacuum and mop is a low-stakes entry-level option that checks many boxes, and right now it’s at a record-low 44% off at $139.99 (originally 249.99) on Amazon, according to price-trackers. Roborock Q7 L5 Robot Vacuum and Mop …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Nintendo Switch and the Switch 2 are pretty user-friendly devices, but sometimes, that can be a bit more of a hindrance than a help. It's easy to jump right into a game, but if you want to toggle on a feature like dark mode or, say, even make a Mii, you have to jump through a lot of hoops in the settings menus. That's a shame, because if you're willing to learn the ins-and-outs, there's a lot you can do on these systems, whichever version of the Switch you own. Over the past few years, I've spent more time playing around in the Switch ecosystem than anyone reasonably should, and along the way, I've picked up a handful…