Setting Up Your Home Office

You know the scenario: You have a bunch of unread emails . The more that come in, the more anxious you get—and the more you procrastinate on sorting through them. How do you decide which ones to reply to and in what order? Even when the amount of unreads isn't overwhelming, your choice can determine how your workday will go. In general, you should choose a side between a last in, first out (LIFO) or first in, first out (FIFO) approach—and, in my opinion, the best choice is LIFO. What are LIFO and FIFO?LIFO and FIFO are terms that come from the financial world—respectively, they stand for “last in, first out” and “first in, first out.” They’re often used by accountants to…

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…

My Neato D5 Connected was once a willing workhorse, but, today, things aren't looking so good. I recently caught an email from the company alerting me that it shut down my vacuum's cloud servers. Now, my once capable Neato is just a LiDAR-equipped vacuum with a soul that's been deprecated. Without cloud servers, the "smart" is gone. This could be the lobotomized future awaiting Roomba users. Earlier this month, the company behind the pioneering smart vacuum, iRobot, filed for bankruptcy. The remainder of the business will go to its primary manufacturing partner—the one it owes all that money to—Shenzhen Picea Robotics. It's a stark reminder that the longevity of a connect…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. There are two universal truths about tools: They’re expensive, and they take up a lot of space. If you’re trying to maintain a home or perform some DIY work in a small space or on a small budget, stacking up all the tools you might need to get the job done can strain your wallet and simultaneously pose a storage challenge. The solution is actually pretty easy: Buy tools that combine more than one function into a single item. While having the specific tool you need for every job will always be your best choice, if you lack space and/or cash, combination tools like these give you all the capability you need without eating up…

The first supermarket, the Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, opened its doors in 1916. It was the first time people could wander around a store and pick their items from a shelf instead of handing a list to a clerk who would gather everything for them—typically without any choice of brand or style. Grocery shopping remains a daily or weekly ritual for most people, and it can be a real chore—especially if you’re shopping for a large family. My own grocery lists aren’t all that long, but I still find myself juggling my phone and a scrap of paper as I walk around the store, checking for digital coupons and trying to do quick math. So when I read that one of the local grocery stores …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve been doing any kind of work around any kind of house for a while, you probably have a few trusty old-school C-Clamps on hand. The C-Clamp has been in use for thousands of years. It’s one of those dead-simple tools that just works. It’s also one of those tools you tend to collect multiple examples of, in different sizes. Typically, you use a C-Clamp to, uh, clamp stuff together, like two pieces of wood, or to clamp something into place while you work on it (I use them a lot to cut lumber so I can have both hands on the saw, as I am allergic to emergency rooms.) But the C-Clamp is actually a very versatile tool tha…

Rewarding yourself can backfire. If you tell yourself, “I’ll only listen to my favorite podcast while I’m at the gym,” it takes just one moment of weakness to realize you can cheat and listen to it any time you want. Instead, try this: Reward yourself with something that has no enjoyment value whatsoever. Like a checkmark on your calendar. I first heard this tip from writer Tim Clare’s podcast. If you want to stay motivated, he says, the reward has to be so crappy that you’re not actually working for the reward. He said that he puts a checkmark on his calendar every day he writes, and at the end of the week enough checkmarks earn a gold star. The same approach has worked…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Winter weather can be miserable, but there is one huge perk: snowball fights. Any time a deep carpet of snow gets dumped on us, you can count on a bunch of kids (or young-at-heart adults) engaging in epic snowball fights, sometimes involving surprisingly well-engineered snow forts and sophisticated tactics. This is the 21st century, however—if you’re still fighting your snowball fights with nothing but your bare hands and a sense of determination, you’re missing out. We can’t all be Buddy the Elf, shotgunning perfectly made snowballs like some sort of winter weather Terminator—but we can invest in some of the most fun snow…

Hisense is all about TVs at this year's CES—specifically, how those TVs display color. If the company's keynote is any indication, Hisense is extremely invested in leading the charge in color reproduction. Though its tagline this year is "Innovating a Brighter Life," the pitch is less on how bright their TVs are, and more on how true to life their colors are, especially when it comes to accurately displaying the filmmakers' original intent. Will consumers buy a TV because their favorite movie looks a bit more how the director intended it to be? I'm not sure. But that's largely the idea behind Hisense's new RGB MiniLED Evo. RGB MiniLED Evo …

I don't have a cat, but I do have a dog, and my dog can be a picky eater. After months of trial and error, the only way we could get him to consistently eat breakfast and dinner was with wet food. There is no scenario in which I or someone watching my dog can outsource the task of feeding him, but that's not the case for cat owners. I know that cats sometimes stay home alone for extended periods of time, where an automatic food dispenser becomes essential. I can only imagine, then, that cat owners who, like me, feed their pet wet food, now have a challenge: Someone has to be there to feed the cat. That's what intrigues me about Petkit's Yumshare Daily Feast, an automated …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I just got back from CES 2026, and you can see my real-time reports on some of the best and weirdest things I saw in our CES 2026 live blog. I tried on six(!) different exoskeletons, perked up my ears whenever I heard about a new smart strap, and looked in vain for new models of familiar fitness tech like watches. Here are the biggest trends I noticed and some notes on what was conspicuously missing. I've included prices where possible; anything without a price is likely too far from market to have one yet. The number of non-Whoop smart bands just doubled …

You have probably heard of skimming, a type of fraud in which criminals install physical devices capable of capturing your payment card details on ATMs, gas pumps, and point-of-sale terminals. If you enter your debit or credit card into one of these fake card readers, your data is stored for later download or transmitted wirelessly in real time to a device controlled by scammers, who will use the information to steal from your accounts. Unfortunately, online shoppers aren't immune from this scheme. Web skimming is a type of cyberattack that uses malicious code to steal card data during checkout, and researchers have identified an ongoing campaign targeting major payment …

I’m sure you’ve seen the studies that come out from time to time showing that diet sodas are arguably kinda-sorta bad for you. (Their evidence is never very strong.) But did you see the new study that found diet soda was better than water for people with type 2 diabetes? Not only is it a real study, it was well-designed and we should be paying attention to it, according to an epidemiologist I talked to who was not involved in the study. That epidemiologist is Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz of the University of Wollongong, who wrote about it here. When I asked him if it was a good or a bad thing that this study had mostly escaped notice by news media, he said “this is far more ro…

Whether you're chasing KOMs (aka "King of the Mountain" leaderboard titles), training for your first race, or just trying to out-walk your coworkers in a monthly challenge, Strava is the social network for people who enjoy suffering outdoors. But beyond the basic "record activity, get kudos, repeat" cycle, there's a whole world of features and tricks to enhance your Strava experience. Use heatmaps to find the best routes anywhereStrava's global heatmap—controversial as she may be—shows the most popular routes based on millions of activities from users worldwide. The bright orange lines reveal where locals actually run and ride, helping you avoid sketchy areas, find the sc…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. On Monday, Apple released a new AirTag—but you wouldn't know that from looking at it. The new AirTag is visibly identical to the old one, despite dropping nearly five years later. But the point of this refresh wasn't to introduce a new design, or even a remarkably improved tracker. Instead, Apple added a couple subtle upgrades that benefit new buyers, without displacing existing AirTag users. There are two key improvements here: The first impacts Precision Finding, Apple's system to guide you to lost items. Your device uses its ultra wideband (UWB) chip to give you detailed directions to the location of your AirTag, inclu…

Many of us choose to upgrade our smartphones every two or three years, while others pick up the latest model every year. But just because it's the norm to swap out your smartphone on a regular basis, that doesn't mean all of us do. Smartphones can last a long time, especially if you maintain it with the occasional battery replacement. But no piece of technology lasts forever. Eventually, something gives out—even if it's just the company that makes it. Even Apple, which usually offers its iPhones a number of years of updates after their original release, drops support for new features after some time. That's why your iPhone XS can't run iOS 26: Apple drew the line here thi…

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…

Hitting 10,000 steps every day is a bullshit goal. Step counts can feel daunting, especially for people who work desk jobs or have physical limitations. The mere pressure to hit 10,000 steps can become its own source of stress—miss the goal by a few thousand steps, and it's easy to feel like the whole day was a wash. Rather than obsessing over hitting a specific step count, consider shifting your focus to a simpler, more achievable goal: sitting less. This reframing is not only easier to sustain, it could be just as beneficial for your health. Why you should break up sitting time"Spending the bulk of your time seated is a major contributor to increasing the risk of heart …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Valve's Steam Deck revolutionized PC gaming when it came out in 2022, popularizing the handheld gaming PC format. In 2026, it's still got a great performance-to-price ratio, and is plenty relevant compared to more expensive and more finicky alternatives like the Asus Rog Xbox Ally X. But that doesn't mean it's fully stacked right out of the box. SteamOS presents a more intuitive pick-up-and-play experience than I've used on any other handheld gaming PC (or gaming PC in general, to be honest), but there are plenty of hacks and customizations you can use to make it truly yours. Steam Deck's desktop mode basically turns it in…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re a competitive gamer, OLED displays are widely recommended for their speedy pixel response times, which virtually eliminate motion blur and ghosting. The result is smoother, sharper visuals with better contrast, so you don’t have to deal with the dreaded slow-motion lag when you’re in the zone. LG’s UltraGear monitors are known for leading the charge in this area, and right now, the highly rated 27-inch LG 27GX700A-B Ultragear OLED monitor is 41% off at $473.99 (originally $799.99), taking more than $300 off the price tag. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. 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. As someone who spends most of my training time pounding pavement in preparation for marathons, I'll admit that rowing has always felt like foreign territory. Sure, I'd hop on the occasional rowing machine at the gym for cross-training, but I never really got it. That all changed when I had the opportunity to test Hydrow's newest release—the Hydrow Arc Rower—which launched today with some seriously impressive AI-powered features. I’ve just begun testing it out…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. You can get a three-year license of Adobe Acrobat Classic (valued at $324) and a lifetime license of Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows (valued at $219.99) together on sale for $89.99 on StackSocial right now. The bundle is only available to U.S. customers, though. The Acrobat license works on both Mac and Windows, while the Office license is limited to a single Windows PC. And because these are digital codes, delivery is instant, and once redeemed, you can use the software offline without the monthly costs that come with subscriptions. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Google's Gemini AI app has been topping the "most downloaded" charts on both the Apple App Store and the Android Store ever since the company added a free image generation feature, called "Nano Banana," back in August. Of course, Google is hardly the only huge tech corporation with an AI assistant that can make images right on your phone. I wanted to know which mobile AI image generation tools is best, so I pitted three of the biggest—Google's Gemini (with Nano Banana), the iPhone version of OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Meta's Meta AI—against one another in a not-so-old-fashioned image-generation throw down. While there was ulti…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. One of the worst parts of reading anything is when you realize you zoned out, but your eyes kept moving over the words—now, you have to go back and reread everything. It happens to the best of us, but it's especially frustrating when you're trying to study—and that's why simply rereading material and notes won't cut it when you have a test coming up. Instead, tap into the power of active recall. This technique is all about actively retrieving content from your memory instead of just reviewing it passivel…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. This StackSocial bundle pairs Microsoft Office Professional 2021 with Windows 11 Pro on sale for just $44.97 right now (down from nearly $419). It’s the kind of deal that makes sense if you’re setting up a new PC or finally updating an old one. The Office license is for life—no subscription, no annual fees, and it covers all the essentials, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and the free version of Teams. Everything installs locally on one Windows PC, so there’s no hopping between browser tabs or worrying about r…