What is your best "trick" to make your efforts more efficient?
 

Something simple that makes the biggest impact on making a job easier or improves your life. Wetting the thread before putting it through the needle, sifting the bread twice to make the bread more airy, wetting the dressing prior to attempting to remove it, using a pipe on the end of your wrench for leverage, heel lift under the short leg for a limb length discrepancy, that sort of thing.

The thing that surprised me the most was closing one eye to save your night vision. For example. I went into a room to open a window, wanted to pick out what I am wearing today, need to turn on the light. Close my eye, keep it closed while the lights are on, pick out a shirt, open when lights are off. Open your eye and it is like magic, you can still see in the dark. Cover your eye for a while, half an hour, with an eye patch, and you will have night vision in that eye. Turns out, that was usually the deal with old timey sailors and the eye patch, so they could see better when they went below deck.

Arrr matey, what have you got for a neat trick?

Hmmm...kind of related to the above - which is to walk along a shoreline at night with a red-filtered flashlight. Turns out that most critters cannot see that well in red light - so the red light enables one to spy on them unawares...which is truly amazing! Oh...and don't forget that "scorpion-finder" black light flashlight while in the desert!

But what I really should admit here right off the bat...my best "trick" (at least in terms of efficiency) is that first cup of coffee!

For work related stuff? Knowing how to use a *nix command line and the various programs in the textutils, fileutils, and related packages.

I also tend to write programs - from simple aliases and scripts to full blown applications - to do what appear to be repetitive processes as soon as I realize I'll be doing the same thing more than once or twice.

15 years ago I saw three of our employees doign their every-two-years "build the catalog by cutting and pasting from this excel document to that excel document". Took 'em 3 weeks every two years to do this. First year they were moved into my department, I looked at what they were doing, sent them to go get me a cup of coffee across campus (about a 15 minute round trip) and when they returned I had a simple shell script that would do the entire job in about 10 minutes of run time, using cat, cut, sed, and grep.

I wouldn't call it a neat trick but with really big projects I break it down into smaller ones and only focus on that part. I also allow myself to finish early and take breaks as I want.

Right now I'm in the middle of repairing and repainting the outside wood work of my house. It's a big job in total but step by step it doesn't seem so bad. Also... If you need motivation try doing a job you've been putting off for a while. As part of my house painting project I spent an afternoon clearing out the gutters and making sure the drain pipes were clear. Once finished I felt really good about myself.

Plan ahead and use visualization ahead of time. Even the smallest jobs.

"Loading paint onto a paint brush" ... This is how I do it.

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Spread liquid soap all over your hands before putting them in the stream of water. That way you get all the soap and there's no little clump that rinses right off into the sink that you have to rinse out separately.

if it doesn't go, don't force it. or at least until you understand why. I have complicated more projects by "making it fit" and then having to fix additional things than slowing down and thinking it through.

Being a basically one handed DIYer hanging anything is a PITA. So I use "helpers" in the form of nailers. For example when I need to hang anything on a wall I use a 1x 2 as a "rest" to place the hangee on. Kinda sorta like using a "T" when you put up sheet rock overhead, sorta.

Also, even nailing is a problem since I can't hold the nail with my hand while I hammer it. So, I pre drill a starter hole deep enough to hold the nail for me. A PITA sure but it gets the job done.

I just don't use soap that can fall off in clumps. I actually get one hand damp, then put soap on as the water helps with the lather.

Actually reading the instructions.

For work, the thing that has made me much more efficient and stress free is to utilize all the interaction between Microsoft's Office apps. I now set up OneNote notebooks for all of my projects and anything I deem important can be copied into it with a click of a button. Client emails, delivery specs, scripts, and all the random crap that comes through Teams gets organized easily into OneNote. I'm starting to integrate To Do into my workflow, and really like it. I'll try out Planner soon to get more of my team organized on bigger projects too.

When driving in wood screws, first scrape the screw across a bar of soap to get some into the threads. This'll make the screw go in much easier. It's especially helpful with hardwoods, or when driving screws by hand.

^^^^
I use a beeswax bar on screws. They go in clean and don’t split the wood.

For stripped wood screws, instead of going oversized, drive a wood glued golf tee into the hole. Cut flush when dried, drill a new properly sized hole.

Indeed. Creating basic Excel shell scripts is my superpower as well. Also did some script automation for server builds using korn scripts in Unix.

Prior job, I automated the disaster recovery process in a programming language called REXX.

As for stuff around the house, here are some small 'life hacks' that I use:
- I use a leaf blower to 'sweep' out my garage of leaves and dirt. Much faster than the old fashioned broom technique..
- Since I am ambidextrous, when I'm painting, I can use both hands brushing on paint. Comes in really handy when up on a ladder - it extends my reach significantly.

Other stuff:
- When I travel on an airplane, anything that can leak (hair gel...etc) I put in plastic ziplock bags, just in case it leaks, it won't get all over my other toiletries.

For track stuff:
- I have separate 10 gallon crates that I use to keep stuff handy - one for tools, one for safety gear (helmet, hans, gloves...etc), and one for trailer stuff. Far easier to quickly grab what I need when I know where to look for it! IF everything has a place, then it is easy to keep track of everything!

Above all: I try to put stuff back to where I store it as soon as is feasible. At the end of the day, I clean up my tools, and put them away. That way, when I start up on something the next day, I can easily find where my stuff is. Stitch in time...
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This is my take^^^ and also I have plans "B", "C" if "A" does not work out due to time, other resource limits. If the tasks ahead are complex or involve multiple people and projects; add plans "D", "E", and "F"

The execution of a plan, I allow for potential failures, and roll over to the next best plan in order to achieve success.:)

How funny. How true....

I SLOW DOWN. I have a tendency toward anxiety, and this sometimes causes me to skip the step where I stop and think. The slower I go, the faster I accomplish things. Just another of life's counterintuitivities.

Don't stand, sit in the shower.

And brush your teeth, shave, and pee in the shower. Let's not Higgins it up though.

How would sitting in the shower be more efficient? I am never in there long enough to sit

Exactly. And so many people don't.

At high school our teacher played a trick/life lesson on us. He said "Right, this exam you have sixty minutes. Spend five minutes reading the entire document, then start." Most of us kids in our infinite wisdom ripped into answering the questions, confident that we had an extra five minutes that the other fools lost by reading it first. After we finished question 20 and reached the end we read "Choose and answer six questions."

Haha, it has set me up well for life. Thanks teacher.

When "creating " something, I will draw the project in three stages: perspective, overall to scale and details. This allows me to see potential problems and design them out before I cut material.
Also I have learned , like others here, to Stop and think things over before I (hopefully) screw things up too badly.
Even with a lot of planning I often find the finished product does not resemble the initial rendering.

Best
Les

Where's the fun in that? :D

I do 2 out of 3 of these daily................;)

Always be knolling

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When 'designing' stuff on fast cars my trick is to think of every imaginable way I can 'f**k it up' or how 'it can f**k up' and then I try to avoid falling into the traps I thought of :D

We had something similar in a class high school. I think the last line was, do not answer any of the questions above.

I was screwed when I got to the last line. Now I read top to bottom.

The biggest time-saver in existence and you rule it out?

Do it first, by the time you’re done brushing, shaving and peeing, it’s dissolved itself like a miracle.

Amateur.

On behalf of Technical Writers everywhere, we thank you. :D

I was on a radio quiz show..."So what do you do Robert?"
"I am a Technical Writer."
"Like how to assemble stuff?"
"Yes"
"Oooh, so you're the guy who keeps Dads up all night on Christmas Eve!"

I don't let my wife help me do anything.

Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!?

I was actually moonlighting as a joke writer for the (Greaseman) radio show, and he invited me to "Play the Quiz! Let's spin the prize wheel, (tock-tock-tock) Oh WOW! Today's prize is a Suitcase Full of Diamonds!! Okay, now tell me, what is the difference between senile and infantile?'

(.01 microseconds later) BZZZZT!

"Oh too late! Okay, what is the difference between senile and infantile?
The size of the diaper!"

+1!

Find the right talent, then fill in the blanks...

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I've heard the use of soap actually will increase the likelihood of rust forming. Soap absorbs moisture. Instead - I've got a plastic yogurt cup that I filled up with a toilet bowl wax ring (beeswax). I just dip the screw into the wax and then install.

1# Shave mirror on shower door
2# Other shower stuff in easy reach
3# Stone my pretty feet smooth
4# Now room for wifey
5# Sometimes shaves her legs :D

So it is more efficient for your wife.

My biggest "trick" is to take a LOT of pictures of things as a take them apart. My iPhone has an amazing camera, and it really helps to see small things or know for sure how something goes back together.

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I was trying to see if the relay for the footwell blowers was opening and closing as designed. It took some cleaning of some connections and suddenly, the relay was indeed opening and closing. With my bifocals I simply could not get my head close enough to see.

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I was trying to read the size of this Allen wrench, and again, it was just too small. Whip out my cell phone, and ah ha, it is 0.50.

Translated...."A man's gotta know his limitations!"

And I agree.



Yes and also VIDEO --- when you are working by yourself and need to see where the leak is on the passenger side of the truck when you push on the brake pedal..for example....;)