Bethany Hargrove
The Broadside

Here’s a scenario:

It’s late on a weeknight. You’re surfing the Web, viewing random pages and you stumble across an article entitled “How to Plant Ideas in Someone’s Mind.”
Curious, you read on, including the disclaimer warning that planting ideas is often considered evil.

Intrigued by the information, you browse around the site some more, learning how to do thousands of other things to make your life better.
If this situation sounds familiar, you’ve probably already discovered Lifehacker.com.
Lifehacker is a comprehensive self-help site whose articles range widely, with everything from “How to Tell if you’re Compatible with Someone” to “Top 10 Places to Discover New Software.”

Here are some of my favorite topics discussed on Lifehacker.

Computer stuff

Lifehacker has thousands of results for a simple search of “computer,” and the topics range from software tips to guides on building a PC. Their computer related articles are extremely useful for everyone who uses computers, whether they’re technologically minded or not so much.

Mind games

Articles like “How to Manipulate People” and “Hack your Mind on the Go” might sound diabolical, but they are surprisingly insightful guides on how people tick. Many of these articles are more useful for recognizing when people are trying to manipulate how you think, rather than using the (allegedly evil) information to manipulate other people.

Romance

Lifehacker has dozens of articles with romantic tips for those of you in a relationship or looking, and they have some good insight on being single and enjoying it too. Their advice may not always be what you’d find in Cosmo but their perspective seems pretty cemented in reality.

Science

Personal favorite science article: Creating your own Glowsticks.

Making your Life Better

The site is full of general hacks for improving the overall quality of your life, with tips on how to stay organized, how to improve your memory, how to pack more efficiently on trips and anything else.
Overall, with their unbelievable variety of life tips on romance, computers, and everything in between, Lifehacker is a veritable goldmine of information for any topic you can imagine.

Bethany Hargrove can be reached at [email protected]