Sometimes mundane tasks can be like the last thing any of us want to do. So we either procrastinate them or we come up with lazy yet sometimes genius shortcuts to get the job done…no matter what the finished job might look like.
Take a look through these 50 slides showing the best and worst shortcuts some of us humans, and even animals, around the world have come up with.
1. Makeshift Cereal Bowl
If you are completely out of clean bowls or need to take one on the go, check this shortcut out! All you need to make this disposable bowl is aluminum foil. Now, you saved yourself some cleanup time and can take this on the go with you when you are in a rush.
2. Popcorn Hoodie Bowl
Some of us use our clothes to wipe our hands while we eat it anyway so why not just use them as storage. With this shortcut, you don’t even need to dirty a dish! Just flip your sweatshirt around and you a new bowl at your fingertips.
3. Sideways Screen Technique
It can be annoying to tilt your head over and over just to see your screen properly. Or even sometimes simply just keeping your head up. This guy created a pretty clever technique to rest his head and still work.
4. Demons or Lemons
Wait what are they selling?! Either this person was in a rush or their cursive capital L’s look very similar to lowercase d’s. We wonder how many people got a giggle out of this.
5. Reusable Cereal Bowl
Instead of dirtying a dish here’s an easy way to make your own reusable cereal bowl. That you can even take on the go too! All you have to do is keep your cereal in the bag and add some milk then voila!
6. That’s Not Spiderman…
It can be easy to confuse all the marvel characters because of how many there are. But for this one, it seems almost impossible to confuse the bat symbol with anyone else. This just shows that even large production companies sometimes take the easy way out too. Would definitely be a good gag gift for a Marvel fan!
7. Box Chair
Taking a new chair out of the box and building it can take a lot of time and effort. This guy didn’t feel like doing either. His shortcut was to just use the box as his new chair. He’ll get around to building it someday…we hope.
8. Just Eat Around It
If you’ve ever eaten fruit you know sometimes these stickers can be a huge pain to get off. Either that was the case for this person or they just didn’t even feel like attempting it. Sometimes you just gotta eat around it.
9. Happy Birthday On Both
Whoops! This worker clearly was not thinking about what they were writing. Although the cakes look great it wasn’t supposed to read “Happy Birthday On Both” but “Happy Birthday” on both.
10. Fast Fitness
We wonder if this gym installed these two escalators as an experiment. Testing its users if they are actually about their exercise in and outside the gym. However, we could understand wanting to conserve a bit of energy before stepping through the doors of the gyms.
11. Ditto!
There is always a silent competition between neighbors on who can decorate their house the best. However, this is quite an expensive and time-consuming process that many don’t realize at first. One house came up with a cheap and very easy shortcut that respects the efforts of the neighbors.
12. Plastic Wrap Dish Trick
With this shortcut you’ll rarely have to do dishes again! All you need to is take some plastic wrap and cover the plate before use. Once you’re done just take the plastic wrap off and throw it away. Very quick trick but not sustainable long term.
13. To Enter Or Not To Enter
Whelp this is confusing. Seems like whoever put these signs up was clearly not paying attention or doing a social experiment. To enter or not to enter that is the question…
14. Security On…Snoozy
When one security officer just couldn’t keep his eyes open a second longer he thought of a pretty clever trick so he could get some quick shut-eye. All he did was prop up a cardboard cut out of an officer and from far away it could look real. But if anyone were to look from the side they would see what’s really going on.
15. Doorstop Box
I guess you could say it’s still being used technically right. It appears as though this person was too lazy to even take the actual doorstopper out of its packaging. Maybe it’s a way to get more uses of it overtime.
17. Taking A Weight Off
Even dogs take shortcuts! Just look at this doggo who simply couldn’t be bothered to use their back legs. We respect the effort this pooch made we just wonder how it went getting back up to the couch.
17. Vacuum Retriever
When this guy accidentally dropped his shirt from two stories up the last thing he wanted to do was go downstairs. So he rigged a vacuum to retrieve it instead. Seems like exerting a little more energy for this option but definitely makes life more interesting.
18. Just Flip It On Its Side
When you are laying down it can be straining to watch TV. So this guy figured why not just flip the tv on its side. Not sure if this would work with TVs many of us have in our homes now.
19. Close But Not Quite
What a nice mug celebrating the marriage of Prince William and Kate! That is until you notice they put the wrong Prince on the mug. Close but not quite!
20. Temporary Fix
Either the plumber wasn’t around or someone didn’t want to call one for this temporary fix. From the looks of this, we don’t know how long this fix will last. Either way, a plumber is going to need to come out.
21. Bun Mix Up
It took us a minute to figure out exactly what was wrong with this picture. That is until you notice that the hot dog buns were put in the hamburger bun bag and the hamburger buns were put into the hot dog bag. Whoops! Although hot dog and hamburger buns are often sold together so we aren’t sure this mix up made much of a difference.
22. Express Yourself
With all that the world just experienced in 2020 we can understand this picture on a deeper level. The whole year of 2020 has changed fashion as we know it making loungewear acceptable at all times of the day for any occasion. So much so that many of us will probably continue to wear our pajamas or loungewear instead of dressing fancy far into the future.
23. Made Where?
This box is quite interesting. Good luck trying to figure out where this product was made. At the bottom where it’s supposed to show where the product was manufactured, it has the American flag but then also lists that it was made in China.
24. Almost Right…
For some people they just cannot be bothered to change the toilet paper roll after if it finished. So they just leave it anywhere else than back on the holder such what is being shown here. Almost right…still gets the job done.
25. No Need To Do Extra Work
It can be a pain waiting for nails to dry after you just painted them. But this woman realized she didn’t need to do any extra work because the shoe only showed two toes. Genius!
26. Never Run Out
Here we have another example of people simply not wanting to change the toilet paper roll. But at least they make sure there’s no fear that the toilet paper is actually gone. You just have to get up and get a new roll yourself.
27. Escalator > Stairs
Instead of taking the stairs these people would rather wait in line for the escalator. Instead getting a tiny bit of exercise they would rather wait in line for a crowded escalator. Interesting!
28. Taking The Dog For A Quick Spin
Sometimes we are just too tired to walk the dog. This guy came up with a shortcut that allows you to get the job done without taking a single step! Making sure to remain at a safe speed and safe distance away in an open area he can walk his dog in a comfortable sitting position with the windows down.
29. Extra Long Straw
Having to constantly pick your drink back up or even holding it in your hand until finished for some people is hard. One little boy came up with a pretty genius way that requires little movement once constructed. All you need to do is attach multiple straws to make an extra-long straw then all you need to do is move your head slightly to reach the straw.
30. Speed Swiffer
Turn sweeping the floor into something so fun even kids will want to take a turn. One man upgraded his remote control car to add a sweeper and now he doesn’t have to even move from the couch. Depending on how good he is with the controls this upgrade could potentially be a faster option.
31. Skittles
This shortcut just makes it harder for everyone else. Instead of opening the bag and properly filling up the dispenser, one employee decided to take a shortcut and just put the bag in. We wonder how long it took for someone to complain or a manager to notice!
32. Recycling Chute
This house prides itself on recycling but going up and down those stairs every time looks pretty tiring. So instead of taking the steps every time, they decided to build a chute that runs along the railing down to the recycling bin. Now all they have to do is make it to the top of these stairs to the chute drop their can in and let gravity do the rest.
33. Lazy Chair
No need to build the chair when the box makes for a perfectly good one. With this shortcut you don’t even need to waste time setting it up. Although with this shortcut you do miss out on the back and headrest.
34. Another XL Straw Builder
For this XL straw user he at least has a table to leave his drink on. Although with how long this straw is and the tiny curve we aren’t sure how well it works just from the picture. It also looks as though nobody will be able to pass in front of him now.
35. New Way To Dress A Mannequin
Check out how these employees came up with a new and SUPER easy way to showcase clothes on a mannequin. Doubles as abstract art and shows the clothes in a totally different way. Although with this you won’t be able to accurately see how it would look on.
36. Invisiblemanitus
Now this is something we’ve never seen before. Pretty clever to use specifically when temperatures are too hot or cold. We are somewhere in between believing this is real and giggling at this art piece. Points for creativity.
37. Catching A Ride
Just like people even birds get lazy. As we’ve seen many humans prefer to take the escalator over stairs this bird shows that you can easily catch a ride on the back of a bigger bird if needed. Sort of like a bird’s version of a piggyback ride.
38. A Lazy Mans Lawn Mower
When one man didn’t want to mow his lawn he came up with a pretty clever shortcut. Call it the lazy man’s lawn mowing technique. All you need is a large pole, some strong rope and you’ll have a nice spiral design if all goes well.
39. Dart Switch
Sometimes when we are so comfy in bed the last thing we want to do is get up for the lights. With a Nerf gun never lose your comfy position again! That is unless you miss every shot…but definitely, a fun new way to switch the lights while not moving from bed.
40. Taking The Trash For A Spin
This person was too tired to walk their garbage can down the driveway so they just drove it down. With built-in wheels at the bottom of many trash cans, this is a clever shortcut. It may be a little bit trickier but it still gets the job done and at least this way you can be sitting.
41. Thanks Captain Obvious
Even if you don’t watch star trek everyone knows the famous quotes and designs. But for one store they made sure to still leave out a shortcut for those who didn’t know to label it. Thank you captain obvious!
42. Waiting In Line is Tiring
Sometimes waiting in a long line can be tiring. For this lady apparently, this line was just too much so she decided to bring a chair to sit. She can sit in this line all day as she waits for her turn to order…genius or lazy?
43. Switch Up
Here we have another easy mix-up. Whoever loaded these boxes definitely was not thinking. But for many shoppers usually, check out the bottle first and not the name on the box so it probably went unnoticed.
44. Lazy Genius Shortcuts
When holding your phone over your face for long periods of time it can get tiring. Even frustrating when we accidentally drop the phone on our face. But this kid had a big idea to make use of the glass table and set the phone on top so he could watch underneath.
45. That’ll Do For Now…
This person really did not want to call in a professional to help them at all. Instead, they just kept drilling nails in until it stayed. As long as it holds up I am not sure they care too much about appearance so we guess that’ll do for now…
46. When Life Gives You Lemons
Looks like someone really did not know what to do with these lemons. Usually, with lemon water, you have to chop the lemons up in order to release the flavor not just drop them in. However, with this shortcut, you can at least still call it “lemon water“.
47. Still Works…
Guess they just did not have enough time to bake the cake. So instead of showing up empty-handed they at least put some thought behind it. The giant candle and how funny the sight of this kind of makes up for no cake.
48. How To Properly Drink While Lounging By The Pool
It can get pretty tired holding a drink while trying to lounge by the pool. Try this guy’s shortcut on how to properly drink while lounging by the pool. Now you can enjoy your cocktail without having to move a muscle.
49. Mini Escalator
After walking long distances through the mall even taking four stairs can be a pain. So this mall decided to add a four-step mini escalator. We hope they have plans for a mini elevator to go along with this.
50. -1 Hour
Why change the clocks at all when you can just leave a sign. Plus when daylight savings returns to normal time all they have to do is take down the sign. The only issue is that everyone else has to calculate the time every time they check the clock.
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