LifeHack2, the new meaning of LifeHack
The original meaning of LifeHack, conceived by Danny O'Brien in 2004 was for geeks, referring to productivity tricks to cut through information overload and generally to organize.
With the passage of time, LifeHack has received a wider meaning, relevant to geeks and non-geeks alike.
Witness the contents of LifeHack.org, LifeHacker.com and 43 Folders, some of the most popular LifeHacking websites.
It is no longer just about web scraping, email spam, to-do-lists, project management, or scripting, but the topics now expanded into creativity, happiness, procrastination, writing and presentation skills, negotiation, investing, relaxation, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, eating habits and many more things we (ordinary people, not geeks) encounter every day.
Can we define this new field, which we propose to call LifeHack2, more precisely?
(Note: LifeHack2 is so called in analogy with MRP - MRP II, or Web - Web2.0.)
Danny O'Brien coined the term Life Hack originally after interviewing super-productive IT figures to know their effective habits, sort of "The habits of highly productive IT people" in analogy to Covey's "The seven habits of highly effective people".
He discovered they have common habits such as handling their to-do lists, automate email, handling spam, scripting, web scraping, make backups, and other little tricks to boost productivity and cope with information overload.
They seem to dislike and distrust complex systems and complex applications, and prefer text files, simple scripting such as offered by Python or Perl.
Surprisingly, the IT people do not always rely on the most advanced technology, instead they often use manual systems like index cards, CRC cards (Ward Cunningham introduced CRC cards for object-oriented design), and paper based to-do lists. Using the simplest possible tool is another form of Occam's razor, or KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Simple systems are always more robust and transparent.
Danny O'Brien acknowledged that sooner or later the above approach of the geeks will be applied to live in general. "The other side of it is - and this is something I talked about quite a lot - is that the hacks that work for geeks end up being useful for a lot of other people who aren't in that subculture at all." This is what we call LifeHack2.
Another development was when David Allen published the book "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" in 2001. The abbreviation GTD (getting things done) is now everywhere. GTD can be seen as a glorified to-do-list, it includes calendars, workflow, 6 levels of focus and planning. One of the ideas of GTD is to externalize our to-do-list electronically or on paper, instead of keeping them in our heads, thus freeing the brain to do other things (less stress). Another idea is the subdivision into manageable small tasks reminiscent of extreme programming.
If you like to get a feel of GTD, it is best to just do it, for example by a paper method PocketMod or using a Tiddlywiki type of software called MonkeyGTD which needs only a browser with JavaScript.
So GTD is one of the most important LifeHacks. It is given a prominent place in LifeHack.org and 43Folders.com.
When I studied GTD, it occurred to me that GTD is an essential tool, but it tied up to general LifeHacking. For example, you can't follow GTD, if you have no energy, both in the sense of physical energy and "life energy". Avoiding energy sinkholes is an example of a related LifeHack. Relaxation in another. Mindfulness and clear comprehension are other related topics to GTD. Planning is not conceivable without clear comprehension.
Thus I came to realize that all the Buddhist notion of developing mental Faculties are related closely to GTD, and conversely, GTD help us developing the Five Faculties.
It becomes clear that the original LifeHack has slowly transform into LifeHack2.
This is illustrated by the popular articles in LifeHack.org: teaching kids charity, using compliments in communication, how to quit bad habits, how to boost creativity, how to set appointment with yourself, How to improve writing, how to restart the exercise habit, etc.
We will now try to describe what is and what is not LifeHack2.
LifeHack2 is about practical day to day matters, it is not about high brow philosophies or religions dealing with metaphysical and supernatural entities.
It is about building mental muscles, which must be practiced continuously at all times. It is developing good habits and eliminating bad habits and mind viruses.
It is not about domain-specific problems, such as hacking automobiles. However general attitudes in motorcycle maintenance, as in "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" can be considered as LifeHack2.
O'Reilly has a series of Hacks books, e.g. Excel Hacks, Google Hacks, Perl Hacks, Blackberry Hacks, FireFox Hacks. All of these are not LifeHack2, because they are domain specific.
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