Lifehacks? Spare Me!

 A month long  blog event hosted by

Estella's Revenge,

Girlxoxo, and Traveling with T

Today's Prompt: 5 Most Useful Digital Lifehacks or 5 Fave “Insert something non-bookish here“ –link-up hosted at Estella’s Revenge 

Lifehacks? Sounds like something out of Fargo - you know, with the wood chopper.

I'm choking (hack, hack, hee-hee)

Definition (from Wikipedia): Life hacking refers to any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life. It is arguably a modern appropriation of a gordian knot - in other words, anything that solves an everyday problem in an inspired, ingenious manner.

This usage has been around since the mid 2000s, according to Wikipedia. Why did I not know it?

Sorry, I've never utilized this particular term.

I don't think I'll start now.

I'll go with the second option:  5 Fave “Insert something non-bookish here“ 

5 Fave things to do when I'm taking a brief break from reading:

1. Swimming/water exercise: I try to go to the pool three times a week. When I swim laps my mind clears and I think of nothing except the motion of body through water.
2. Listening to music: I rarely listen to music while reading. Like swimming, listening to music blots out everything else.
3. Playing games: I don't mean those complicated role playing games, just simple games on Pogo.com and trivia games on Sploofus.com and Sporcle.com. This morning I was insanely pleased to break into the top ten for the month on Sploofus' trivia question of the day leaderboard. Also once a week I play Mah Jongg face-to-face with three friends. We rarely discuss books (though we meet in a library).
4. Surfing the net for non-bookish things: Google images here I come! Toss a noun or a phrase (for example, basketballs in art) in Google search and click on images.
5. Figuring out what to have for dinner: This is an enjoyable joint activity with the daughter who lives with me. 

These are faves for brief (less than a day) breaks from reading. I can't remember if I ever went more than one day without reading. I think I must have, that time I had dysentery, on the train, in Mexico when the only thing I read was the sign, in Spanish, in the bathroom, reminding people that they shouldn't flush when the train was in the station. It was a very long train trip, followed by a couple of days in what I'm told was a very nice hotel. I don't know if that's true, I slept the whole time.

Oh, yeah,  the time when I was ten years old and had measles and they kept the room dark--but maybe that doesn't count 'cause my brother sat out in the hall and read to me. (Maybe this is why I don't like audio books--I associate being read to with being sick?)

Enough! Back to reading!