Let me start out with a disclaimer: I know next to nothing about the true intention of the term “Life Hack” beyond what is described in (my favorite reference tool) the Wikipedia. On the other hand I have read the David Allen bestselling book Getting Things Done and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to incorporate it into my own life.
A get the feeling that “Life Hack” has become a misappropriated term, at least in the sense that people have turned it from the study of geek tools (namely, quick and dirty computer scripting) to a generalized, faddish Self Help buzzword. My friend who goes by the moniker “Spadzoot” once wrote a bit of a polemic about this particular craze. And I have to agree, to a point, with his assessment. The website 43Folders is a website whose audience is interested in applying the methodologies of the “Getting Things Done” book into their personal workflow systems. For a while I was keeping tabs on 43Folders, but a lot of the postings were becoming downright silly, and I saw the community mostly as a bunch of people who had drunk a little bit too much of the Kool Aid.
(more…)