Over the past day or so I’ve exchanged a few posts on social media that alludes to a post I’d written about Lifehacker over a year ago.
Even when they publish pieces that harken back to the “good ol’ days” of Lifehacker, they still publish material that keeps that old post in the back of my mind.
It’s those pieces of material – the ones that I’m not fond of at all – that also reminded me of a TEDx talk I did just over a year and a half ago called Hacking Lifehacks: Reimagining How We Speed the Right Things Up So We Can Slow the Right Things Down. While the delivery is okay (I’ve improved quite a bit since 2011 with my speaking), I believe the theme of the talk still holds true – along with a great deal of the content.
I think things like using coins to open bags of chips isn’t where the future of lifehacks lies. In fact, I don’t even think these really are lifehacks at all. If anything, they should be called “MacGyvers” as an homage to the fictional television character who was able to use what he had to do something outside of the realm. I think those types of posts belong on MakeUseOf far more than Lifehacker…but maybe that’s just me.
I invite you to check out my TEDx talk below and decide for yourself. Considering I wrote and gave this talk in 2011, maybe the writing was on the wall even back then.
