Life hack

The term life hack refers to productivity tricks that programmers devise and employ to cut through information overload and organize their data.

The original definition of the term life hack referred to quick and dirty shell scripts and other command line utilities that filtered, munged and processed data streams like email and RSS feeds.[1][2] Examples of these types of life hacks might include utilities to synchronize files, track tasks, remind yourself of events or filter email.

As the meme spread, the definition of the term expanded. Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way might be called a life hack. The term became popularized in the blogosphere and is primarily used by geeks who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow.

“Life” refers to an individual's productivity, personal organization, work processes or any area the hacker ethic can be applied to solve a problem. The terms “hack”, “hacking” and “hacker” have a long (and troubled) history in the computing and geek communities, particularly within the open source crowds. According to the Jargon File (typically the authority on the term), the quickest summary is “an appropriate application of ingenuity” to a problem.