10 of the Best Ways We hacked Each Others' Lives in 2021

To know Beth Skwarecki is to be mildly—if not totally—obsessed with her and her impressive array of hobbies and interests. She is not like us, she is better, which is why she is the only health and fitness writer I read with any regularity. Beth played a huge role in helping me meet my fitness goals last year, but if I could pass on a single piece of wisdom from Beth to the world, this blog would be it. It may seem overly simplistic, but putting some fucking weight on the bar is the only way you’re going to get those sweet, sweet gains. As Beth explains, more weight is not something you have to “earn” with perfect form, and you’re probably underestimating how much you can lift.

(I initially started off with paltry 70-pound leg presses. “You can probably do 200,” Beth texted me. She was right.)—Claire Lower, senior food editor

I spend almost as much time agonizing about whether or not my parenting is screwing up my kids as I do actually parenting. So I appreciate it when I come across a piece of simple, actionable advice that will change the way I interact with my kids—hopefully for the better—without taking up valuable time I could otherwise spend worrying. Staff writer Sarah Sowfety did just that with this concise, persuasive post about how I’ve been fucking my kids up for years by praising their work in the wrong way. It sounds like I’m being facetious, but I’m not! When my son shows me his homework now, I tell him, “Wow, it looks like you worked really hard on this!” instead of just “good job,” because I want him to know I appreciate his effort. Maybe, in some small way, it will help him to understand that true satisfaction comes from within. And then won’t grow up to be a grade-grubbing teacher’s pet like his dad.—Joel Cunningham, deputy editor

I live near a very scenic cemetery, and I would love to run there. But I would also feel very weird running there, and I’ve never quite been sure how to reconcile these two feelings. Lifehacker staff writer Meredith Dietz, on the other hand, considered the question and went and got a fucking answer. Her post has a history lesson and a variety of viewpoints including from folks in the “funeral business,” which is a pair of words I did not realize went together. And thanks to her research, I know exactly how to go about a cemetery run, should I choose to do one.—Beth Skwarecki, senior health editor

As if Claire Lower’s journey to get enough archery draw strength to kill an elk while hunting with her dad wasn’t noble and engaging enough, this post highlights the secondary goal she reached along the way—a bigger, more powerful ass. With a nod to the futility of working out purely for vain butt-building purposes, she sails past the usual blocks and abandoned workout regimes and emerges victorious, with not only increased strength capacity to bag an elk, but also a posterior that sat a little bit higher. (And who among us doesn’t crave such outcomes in life?) As a bonus, you get to watch Claire crush a very ripe melon with her thighs—the many facets and phases of which are nothing short of glorious.—Sarah Showfety, staff writer

This piece from our former finance writer, Mike Winters, is a fascinating read into the current status of the Pokémon card market, as well as the trading card market as a whole. Truthfully, it’s masochistic for me to enjoy this piece, since I’m forced to think of all the Pokémon cards I gave away years ago. I could either be sitting on a pile of cash, or, at least, a nice nostalgia trip. I’m sorry, Pikachu.—Jake Peterson, senior tech editor

If at some point over the past (oh, I don’t know) five or six years, you have wondered to yourself, “What on Earth is wrong with people?,” you need not look any further for answers than this piece, written by staff writer Stephen Johnson. “What is wrong with people” can be boiled down to a few simple facts, and those facts are that everyone is stupid, lazy, and possibly insane (including you). And this isn’t just Steve waxing poetic about the innate idiocy and lunacy of the human race as he sees it—he backs his argument with things like facts and research. It might sound like it has the potential to be a depressing read, but it’s quite the opposite—it is enlightening and, in a way, somewhat reassuring.—Meghan Walbert, managing editor

I probably spend more time looking at my iPhone than I do looking at my children, which is a depressing thought. If I’m going to stare at it that much, though, I might as well know all the neat things it can do. That’s where Jake, our senior tech editor, comes in: He and his team are constantly making me aware of tweaks and settings to make all of my most-used apps more efficient. And my favorite instance of that this year may be the time he informed me that my phone has secret codes I can type into the number pad that will help me perform basic tasks, from placing a call anonymously to checking my device’s IMEI. That’s pretty cool.—Joel

I made a New Year’s resolution to stop doom-scrolling in 2021. It’s worked out really well, but I still need to keep informed about the plague, so I limit my intake of COVID information to posts from Beth Skwarecki. Informative, honest, up-to-date, trustworthy, and presented without the doom (except when it’s warranted.)—Stephen Johnson, staff writer

As far as I am concerned, Lifehacker Senior Food Editor Claire Lower wrote the best recipe blog on the internet in 2021, because her recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts on the stalk is the only one of them I read all year long that practically demanded I actually make the thing. So I did. It was delicious.—Joel

Lifehacker’s senior health editor, Beth Skwarecki, has spent the better part of the past two years keeping us armed with all the latest information we need to try to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic. But health and fitness aren’t Beth’s only areas of expertise; she also writes non-health service-oriented pieces I appreciate just as much, including Merge Properly, You Assholes. As Beth explains:

When you’re driving down the road, and see that your lane will be closed ahead, what do you do? If you change lanes early, believing that you are doing the right and good thing and that anybody who drives right up to the merge point is cheating—you, my friend, are the asshole.