Helping You Help Yourself #36

Keep your pillows clean.

Oh just some tips on perfect selfie lighting at home.

Probably I am the only adult human on earth with this problem, but I often feel challenged by renaming files on my Mac; it’s not that I don’t know how, just that I feel I do it very inefficiently. Useful, then, to have this guide to the fastest ways to rename files on Mac OS!

Relevant to many of your interests: the best way to tie a shirt into a crop top. Take a selfie with your now-perfect lighting after!

It’s hard to get and stay into a mindframe that keeps things clean! Here’s how to use the Ten Things Game and two other strategies to ease yourself into picking up the place.

Truly the bane of my existence is when news sites or other random browser tabs start playing video coverage while I’m just trying to read the article. You likely already know how to mute tabs, but this Chrome extension only lets whitelisted tabs play sound.

Winter is coming! I know I always lose the energy and motivation to cook for myself when it gets dark at 5 pm. Here’s 10 things to keep in the freezer for quick dinners. Related: an app that gamifies cooking for yourself and gives you recipes to try. Neat!

Zipping up dresses or other garments by yourself is a pain! Here is a way to do it without having to buy a special thing for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym0PbBzqYRo

Worried that people you know won’t vote on November 8th? Here’s an app for iMessage that gets the word out to your contacts about registering and voting.

Grocery shopping, cooking, and leftovers for one.

Here are five tips for for dealing with people who keep interrupting you, for if you ever plan to participate in a presidential debate.

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Rachel

Originally from Boston, MA, Rachel now lives in the Midwest. Topics dear to her heart include bisexuality, The X-Files and tacos. Her favorite Ciara video is probably "Ride," but if you're only going to watch one, she recommends "Like A Boy." You can follow her on twitter and instagram.

Rachel has written 1142 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. So, if I am understanding correctly, it would be considered ill- advised to use my favorite comment when interrupted….. “If you interrupt me again, I am going to hunt you down after the meeting and kill you!” Too much????

  2. That video on making your shirt into a crop top would have been super helpful for my Midwest Gothic outfit! Will definitely need to use this new skill soon.

  3. I am not very concerned that people won’t vote on November 4th, since November 8th is election day here in the States (in which case, yes, y’all need to vote, unless you’re sending in an absentee ballot (like me!) or voting early).

  4. !!! That tip about how to zip up a dress is AMAZING. Maybe other people already knew. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I didn’t and this changes everything. THANK YOU!

  5. Thanks so much for this Rachel! Being an adult is hard. Love the 10 things cleaning game, and the article on solo food.

  6. If someone I knew started pestering me with that iMessage app, iWould probably block them until they agreed to stop. =)

    I love that bit for zipping up a dress. That’s definitely something to save.

  7. Maybe go to a park and hang em out? Invite some friens or neighbours and have a pillow-breezing-day!

  8. I’d love to have my freezer full of all that stuff but can’t imagine ever taking the time to make and freeze it all in advance. And if I did, it would probably just share the same fate as all the diligently-chopped overstock from last year’s CSA and vegetables from my ex’s parents’ garden that sit in Ziploc bags in the freezer and remind me I still can’t be bothered to defrost these things.

  9. If you’re a spoonie (like me) or have mental illness (like me) and cleaning often gets on top of you, Unfuck Your Habitat has the best strategies on how to turn cleaning into a habit you don’t even think about. She’s covered making it work for folks like me here here and here.

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