Every self-respecting Life Hacker needs to have a post touting their own Best Practices for tackling life’s inefficiencies. Well, here are mine. I use all of these on a regular basis.
Use PayTrust as your permanent billing address and universal bill payer
- Reduces the volume of junkmail
- Increases your privacy
- Multiple funding accounts
Use Evernote for everything
- I have no more physical files; I’ve scanned every document going back to ’97
- Access insurance binders, medical records, eBooks, etc from one application
- Use as primary bookmarking log; keeps original snapshot of the page that you can search (like your own Google)
- To share screenshots with people over IM
- Save serial numbers & digital copies of software
- Print to Evernote to save all electronic confirmations
Use 1Password for keeping your passwords secure
- Keeps your “Key Chain” in sync with all other devices
- Autocompletes Credit Cards, Forms, Addresses, etc
- Works on iOS, OSX, Windows and in all standard browsers
Use CardMunch for importing all business cards
- Uses Mechanical Turk for crowd sourced data-entry; beats OCR any day
- Integrates with LinkedIn
Use LinkedIn for managing all professional contacts
- Living Resume complete with recommendations
- Professional forum for interaction
- Use Resume Builder to export your resume in a professional format
Use Mint.com to get an overview of all finances
- Supports every financial institution I use
- If your financial institution is not supported, you should consider moving your money else where
Use ConnectedHQ.com as your personal CRM
- Set reminders for when to follow up with people
- Overview of what your contacts are doing on all connected social networks
Use an IronKey to protect your utmost sensitive data
- Tamper-proof, hardware encrypted USB stick
- Self-destructs if too many unlock failures
Use Amazon Prime
- Buy anything that’s out of your way from Amazon; e.g. Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry shaving cream, salon products, etc.
Use the Jing Screen Recorder
- To communicate bugs to tech support; spend less time describing the problem by just illustrating it
Use iCloud (Formerly MobileMe) for device synchronization and discovery
- If your an Apple fan-boy as myself, then just sticking with *Mac makes everything so much smoother
- Google Sync + iCloud sync does NOT work; constant contact duplication and problems with UTF8 names
- Find lost iPhones and Macs
- Remote wipe stolen or lost devices
- Over-the-air backups of iOS devices (including Photos!)
Use Automator on the Mac with shortcuts to scan to Evernote
- I use Command+E to automatically scan whatever is in my HP-e710 directly into Evernote
- Eliminates the frequent run-around going to the MFP
Use One Medical for doctors visits
- Same day appointments
- Direct access to your doctor via email
Use Google Voice
- One permanent number that rings any device when and how you want it to
- Spam caller detection + Call blocking (“Sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service”)
- Voice mail transcription means you receive voicemails as emails
- Free SMS
Use Sipgate.com for your own SIP phone
- This allows me to bring my phone with me when I travel (works overseas!)
- Allows me to have my landline both at my house via a cordless handset and on my laptop
- Cheap calling rates and no monthly usage fees
Use Facebook Messenger on the iPhone
- Easy way to get ahold of my friends for free.
- No more of that “What Apps”, BlackBerry Messenger BS.
Use Google Apps for all your private domains
- Hosting your own SMTP/IMAP server is so passe
- I’ve had 100% uptime for the past 5-6 years
- No service has better spam detection
Use DropBox
- To keep your Desktop in sync with all your devices
- To remotely start torrents
- To sync and backup your encrypted 1Password Agile KeyChain
Use Airport Extreme
- To wirelessly backup all your devices without you having to remember to do anything
- Act as your home router
Use GPG Tools for the Mac
- To cryptographically sign all your outgoing mail
- To encrypt/decrypt mail
- To keep a manage your GPG Key Chain
Use FreshBooks for invoicing
- Simpler to use than QuickBooks if you can get away with it
- Automatically send invoices on a schedule via snail mail or email
Use an Accountant to handle all your taxes
- I can’t keep up with the tax codes and special deductions available
- Just hand them the keys to Mint.com
- Especially handy when receiving numerous 1099s
- A resource you can ask questions as they come up
Use Ubercab for getting around San Francisco
- All you need is your phone; no cash or credit cards; tip included in fare
- Arrives FAST
- Courteous, professional drivers
Use 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring
- Because if your life is now hosted in SaaS, you’re vulnerable to identify theft; it’s just a matter of time
- For the piece of mind
Use TripIt.com to keep track of all your travel itineraries
- Most useful for complex travel plans involving multiple legs
- Handy iPhone app so you can view all flights from a single application
Use PagerDuty.com for on call alert notifications
- Calls you when your stuff is down; SMS is so 90s
- Supports on-call calendars so you don’t have to manage it yourself
- Import on-call calendars straight into iCal
- Use Gruml to connect with Google Reader on OSX for the native app experience
- Use MobileRSS to connect to Google Reader from iOS
- Keeps your reading activity in sync with all your devices
- Makes searching fast
- Email a PDF to their service and they fax it for you
- No monthly usage fees
- Pay per page
- Email a Word Doc and they stamp and send it for you
- No monthly usage fees
- Pay per page
Please share the tips and tricks you use! I’d love to hear them.
