From The Tips Box: Water Glasses, Evernote Shortcuts, Gmail Searches

Lifehacker readers offer their best tips for dishwasher overload, hidden Evernote shortcuts, and searching for messages in Gmail.

Picture: Lucy Orloski/Flickr

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or send it using the contact tab on the right.

Wash Fewer Dishes by Finding a Place for Your Glasses

Gwen Nicodemus figures out a better way to keep the dishwasher empty:

Do you wash too many water glasses in your house? I finally figured out a decent solution to the water glass problem.

Four humans reside in my house, but I cleaned a lot more than four water glasses each day. Even considering houseguests, the number soared. I probably should have just been happy my kids were drinking water, but where’s there’s a problem, there’s a solution.

In an effort to solve this problem, I observed for a few days. I always keep my cup on top of the fridge with water in it, so I can drink room temperature water. My husband keeps his on top of the fridge empty, because he likes cold water.

The kids can’t reach the fridge. Where did the kids leave them? If they left the cups on the table, I assumed they were dirty and washed them. If they left them on the counter, I assumed they were dirty and washed them. It seemed my kids just needed a spot to put their cups, and they’re too short to reach the top of the fridge.

So, the solution seemed simple. The kids needed a spot that was just for water glasses. I took a metal shampoo caddy (for the shower) and removed the suction cups. I mounted it on the wall, at kid height. Then I gave a mini lecture. Kid 1 gets the left side. Kid 2 gets the right side.

Since then, I’ve had a reasonable amount of water glasses to wash each day: one for each resident plus one for each guest the house hosted.

Three Hidden Evernote Shortcuts for Creating New Notes

Dutch Berry discovers a few lesser-known shortcuts in Evernote:

I accidentally discovered a few interesting Evernote for Windows shortcuts that I could not find listed around the internet. I am sure there are more, but I have not explored it. Have you heard of these shortcuts or do you use them? It would be interesting to see if there are other shortcuts that are not mentioned on their website or around the internet.

Ctrl+Shift+I: Opens a notepad for handwritten notes

Ctrl+Shift+U: Opens a voice recorder in a new note

Ctrl+Shift+W: Opens a new webcam note

These don’t seem to be on Evernote’s official list here, but they do work!

Find Messages Without a Label in Gmail

Joe Rowley shares a search operator for Gmail:

If you have a lot of emails with labels in Gmail but still can’t clear out that inbox, try searching for “in:inbox has:nouserlabels”. This will allow you to quickly find those pesky miscellaneous emails and deal with them accordingly.

It’s a little quirky, since certain conversations may have messages with and without labels in them, but depending on how you use labels, it could work well. See Google Operating System’s post on it for more information.

Stay Hydrated and Active at Work at Once

Iamdesi shares a small tip for work:

You want to be hydrated and moving at work, but due to various reasons (procrastination, engrossed in work or other reasons which cannot be disclosed) you just can’t get to it. I found one way which works best for me.

When I get to work in the morning, I fill up and drink up the water cup I have and fill it again. Nature’s reminder which I cannot snooze makes me move to take a bathroom break (I go to the farthest possible restroom in the office), then come back drink up the water left over from the first time I filled it and fill it again. So far I have had 2 cups of water and took one move break in two or less hours of work. With this rate I will take at least 4-5 breaks and 5-6 cups of water.

Hydration and movement breaks with an alarm that you cannot snooze! Choose the cup size depending on your bladder size and keep the size increasing or doubling the quantity you drink up.