People Break Down Their Favorite 'One Weird Trick' That Works Every Time

Home Remedy

When you don't have commercial house cleaning products, check your fridge for solutions. No, really.

Other helpful hacks include using lint, gravity, and plain dish soap.

Glass Magnet

"need to pick up small pieces of glass out of a carpet? Use a wet slice of bread. The surface tension 'sticks' to the peices of glass and the bread picking them out of the carpet. Just remember to vacuum afterwards."

– parabolicurve

Removing Wood Stain

"If you get wood stain in your hands, rub any kind of kitchen oil on it then wash your hands with warm water and dish soap! Works amazingly, otherwise I think I would still have that stuff on me and it's been about three months since then."

"Edit: there seems to be a few confused people not knowing what wood stain is, it's basically just a really sticky/oily substance you put on wood to give it a darker color!"

– MoeK430

Use For Lint

"Save the lint from your dryer and roll in vaseline. My grandpa used these back in the day when we'd go on hunting trips. Hed make them quarter to half dollar size and keep in a metal tin and the vaseline also made them virtually water proof. What we used for our campfires being poor white trash lol."

– Lokken187

Let Gravity Be Your Guide

"Dead batteries bounce when dropped on a hard surface. Good batteries don't."

– banjorunner8484

"This is better than my older sister's method back in the day. She used to tell me to put the prongs of the battery on my tongue, and if it shot me with pain, it was still live. I fell for this a couple years in a row; I was not very bright, and longed to hang out with her and her cool friends!"

– Overratedlove

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

These harmless cheat systems will make you sleep easier at night – both mentally, and physically.

Read At Your Own Pace

"If you have a Kindle and are renting e-books from the library, put it in airplane mode and when it's due back, the book will still return but the content will still be on your device until you turn off airplane mode."

"I don't usually finish my books before they are due back so this trick works great."

– RyFromTheChi

Breathe With Ease

"If your nose is stuffy and congested (or you can try it regardless, it works anyway) press firmly on the bridge of your nose for about 15 seconds. You'll feel your sinuses draining and it helps immensely if you've been crying for a while and it feels like your face hurts."

"There's other pressure points too but that's a good quality of life hack"

– Blacksmoke1033

When You Can't Contain Yourself

"If you feel like you need to laugh or scream, but you are not in a place where this is appropriate, open your mouth and breathe out an entire lungful like 'haaaa.' It will mitigate the feeling, and it's barely audible."

– ApocalypseSpokesman

The Right Head Space

No need to wrack your brain when writing dissertations or when you're trying to comprehend something that just won't sink in.

Because when all else fails, you can use your rubber duck.

It's All In The Font

"Learned this a while back and for some strange reason it's actually helped. When you have an assignment to type out like an essay to write, use the comic sans font and your ideas just flow out of you. As opposed to times new roman or any other official font, you're less worried about the 'correctness' of each sentence and you can just write without being too much in your head. Then of course before submitting have a read through and change it to the official font required."

– vizualdesperada

The Listener

"If you want to make sure you understand something, try to explain it out loud to a rubber duck."

"(Not kidding.)"

"Edit: Y'all, I'm a programmer. I know the origins. But it's useful in learning anything - not just debugging!"

– swordsmanluke2

The Right Portion

"Serve your food on a smaller plate. Tricks the brain into thinking its a large portion."

– bedgasm_for_one

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade OR use the lemon juice to get ride of unwanted highlighter markings.

Just cut a lemon in half, get a cotton swab and soak the tip with the magical citrus elixir and glide it across the unwanted stain and watch it disappear.

All the previously mentioned "tricks" may or may not be 100% effective for you, but what have you got to lose? Lint and bread?

It's a small price to pay, if you ask me.