KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It might sound crazy to store pancake batter in an empty plastic ketchup bottle, but the University of Missouri at Kansas City's king of hacks says it really works.
No worries about spills in the fridge. And the bottle makes pouring batter onto the griddle a snap.
Basically "you don't have to keep making a mess," says Frank Lillig, 24, who writes a "life hacks" column for the University News school paper. (He does admit, however, to needing a funnel to get the batter in the squeeze bottle.)
For Lillig and others around his age, life hacks are ways to "live comfortably while being a poor college student."
But anyone can take advantage of life hacks, which might be defined as inexpensive work-arounds to common problems. Back in the day, some of these were known as "household hints." (Hello, Heloise!)
Now they're all over the Internet -- often illustrated, often on video -- and they can be as specific as whatever your crisis of the day happens to be.
Travel hacks. Marriage hacks. Makeup hacks. Cooking hacks. Cleaning hacks. Pet care hacks. Cheese hacks.
Do not, by the way, associate these helpful hacks with hacks of Target, Sony Pictures, your health insurance company, blah blah blah. Completely different things.
A "creative solution to a computer hardware or programming problem or limitation." That's one definition of "hack," according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, which so far has not added "life hack."
"Hack" as a synonym for "tip" has become so common and apparently so annoying, Lake Superior State University in Michigan included it on its most recent annual list of overused and misused words that ought to be banished.
Whether you call them hacks or not, they're clearly a phenomenon. The latest proof: two new TV shows.
Hacking the System, on National Geographic Channel (9 p.m. Mondays), tackles one area at a time (survival, personal security, money). Host Brian Brushwood "has made a career out of social manipulation and thinking like a criminal." He's also a magician.
Meanwhile, TruTV's Hack My Life not only introduces the life hacks you might have missed (on Pinterest, BuzzFeed, Lifehack.org, etc.) but also tests them.
That show's hosts, Brooke Van Poppelen and Kevin Pereira, take a lighthearted approach.
"I think 'hack' is this very, very 2012 sort of buzzy new way to put it," Van Poppelen says. "I think that's when I really started seeing life hacks being passed around on the Internet."
In Van Poppelen's view, good hacks are "new, completely undiscovered ways to solve everyday problems."
And, yes, some are kinda nutty.
Like using a bicycle tire pump to open a bottle of wine "if you really didn't have anything other than a bike pump around."
"You could do it," she says, "but would you?" Probably not.
And some hacks are impractical for other reasons.
"You can chill a bottle of beer in 30 seconds with a can of compressed air, but that can cost $7," Van Poppelen says. "That's silly, so we are giving qualifiers to all these hacks."
One episode of Hack My Life (9:30 p.m. Tuesdays; episodes also online) featured a supposed shortcut to peeling potatoes. It involved putting spuds in a bucket of water and then agitating the water with a toilet brush hooked up to a drill.
It didn't work, at least for the Hack My Life crew.
Maybe, Van Poppelen says, the guy who did it successfully in an online video -- the prolific "Crazy Russian Hacker" -- didn't disclose every last detail.
"We were like, 'That looks amazing,' but no, the average person, that's not gonna work for [him]. And that'd be a terrible thing to find out on Thanksgiving Day when everybody's waiting for the mashed potatoes."
The show also offered instructions on how to turn a pencil into a fork (think paper clips and tape). If you're in an office with absolutely no plasticware, you might go there.
Other hacks have a high wow factor but will probably never catch on. The TV show demonstrated, for example, that potato chips can be used as a charcoal substitute in your backyard grill.
Van Poppelen says if she found herself in that kind of desperate cookout situation, she'd volunteer to make a charcoal run: "I want to eat those chips!"
But she has embraced some hacks, usually the simple ones. Like defogging the bathroom mirror with a blow dryer. (That's definitely easier than applying shaving cream to the mirror, then wiping it off, to create a fog-free zone. But it does work, the show discovered.)
Lillig, a theater major and Eagle Scout, landed a weekly column after writing an article on camping hacks. But a chunk of that first story was itself hacked -- as in cut.
"A lot of it was how to start a fire" without matches, Lillig says. But editors didn't want to give students in the dorms any ideas.
Speaking of fire, Lillig likes to cook, and he appreciates the versatility of a waffle iron -- it can be pressed into service for omelets and brownies, too, he says. His favorite: hash browns, using frozen tater tots. Both sides cook at the same time, so you don't have to worry about when to turn them.
Lillig and fiancee Lindsay Nelson (another theater major, and managing editor of the paper) are also big fans of wood pallets. "You can find 'em all over the place," including on Craiglist, Lillig says.
The couple used four pallets to elevate their bed, which created shelves on both sides. Pallets also can be transformed into benches or end tables.
Lillig also devoted one column to uses for used tea bags, such as placing them (once they're dry) in shoes, chests and closets to deodorize.
Hacks come in all shapes and sizes. And yep, some are just recycled from when Grandma was a girl.
On the other hand, some are truly innovative "because of technology or an app or something," says Valeria Edwards, family and consumer sciences agent for Johnson County K-State Research and Extension in Olathe, Kan.
Ask Edwards for a couple of life hacks and she'll recommend what might be called lifestyle changes.
Automate your financial life, Edwards says. Set up regular transfers into a savings account and pay bills automatically online.
Another suggestion: Everything in its place. Spend a few minutes every evening planning for the next day: Lay out your clothes, pack lunches, do some meal planning.
But if any of those seem like too much to consider at the moment, contemplate binder clips and dryer lint. We hear they have a gazillion uses.
Style on 03/03/2015