Readers offer their best tips for decluttering your possessions, alleviating indirect cold symptoms, and translating phrases quickly with Google Translate.
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About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, share it here, or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.
Photograph Belongings to Reduce Clutter
Colinwright tells us how he declutters his home:
As a Minimalist and long-term-traveler who likes to travel light, the best way I've found to reduce the numbers of things I own down to a manageable minimum is to photograph each item individually and pop it into a Flickr (or other photo-sharing service) set.
This allows you to see everything you own on one page and share it where you like.
It can help remind you to de-clutter and snag some advice from friends (import the set into a blog post for feedback, then save it as your home page so you have to deal with it every time you open your browser).
If nothing else, the ritual of emptying out your closets and drawers so that you can individually photograph EVERYTHING you own will put in perspective just how much you have and allow you to visualize it and quantify it.
You'll want to get rid of the excess, and it will be easy to see what doesn't belong.
The first step to reduction is perspective.
Alleviate Dry Nose During Flu Season with Lip Balm
Photo by Mr. T in DC.
Ryan Preston Peck shares how he makes the common cold a bit more manageable:
For those of you suffering from the rhinovirus as I am, here's a tip: when the skin around your nostrils gets red, dry, and chapped from tissues, apply lip balm! In my experience, it is less greasy than lotion and you don't have to apply it as often. Also, if you use something like Burt's Bees you get the nice added benefit of peppermint oil, which seems to help a little with congestion. Best to designate a different tube for this than the one you use for your lips.
It's probably something you don't want your coworkers to see, but I live and swear by it.
Use Foreign Google Translate Pages for Quicker Translating
Aaron lets us know a quick way to translate, without messing with drop-downs:
On Google Translate, if you put in foreign language text, it will automatically detect the language and convert to English by default (consider it translate instant). But what if you want to know how to say an English phrase in another foreign language just as quickly?
For example, if you want to say "Hi, how can I help you?" in French, but you don't want to change the language swapping and what not, just go to
translate.google.frand type the phrase. It will automatically detect the "foreign language" as English and convert to the default French.
Alleviate Barometric Tinnitus with Nasal Spray
Photo by B Rosen.
Hello_Newman tells us how his mother gets rid of seasonal ringing in her ears:
My mother has had barometric tinnitus where her ears would ring bad with a change in pressure, like when a storm was coming. I suggested she try some nose spray last night and within 10 minutes the ringing in her ears was gone.
It was like a miracle, because she's suffered for years from this. So I did some research and Oxymetazoline hydrochloride was the active ingredient for Afrin, which is the spray that did it. She had it again today, and it did the same thing, just got rid of all the ringing within minutes. I thought it might help because the nasal cavity is connected to the ears, and we had some sitting around, and nothing to lose by trying it.
The problem is a half ounce bottle of Afrin is $6.79 and wasn't going to last long. I checked more and found "Assured Nasal Relief Spray" is the generic, and they sell a 1 ounce bottle at dollar stores for .99 cents! It's a big problem for many people (the ringing was so loud she couldn't sleep or concentrate). I read on the message boards that nobody had a solution. The doctors said they couldn't find anything wrong with her, and this just clears all the ringing in her ears right away.
Keep in mind you're only supposed to use most nasal sprays like Afrin for a few days at a time, since it's so potent.