In the spirit of You Can Just Do Things, here are some things I Just Do. Some of them are weird; others are normal, but frequently overlooked.

1. You know how on a hot summer night, your pillow gets hot, and then you flip it over to the cool side? But then before long, the cool side becomes too hot? You can fix this by pouring cold water on a towel and then laying the towel over your pillow. The wet towel stays cold for much longer than a dry pillow would.

   When I do this, I only soak half the towel, and then I fold it over so that the dry half of the towel goes between the pillow and the wet half. That way my pillow doesn’t get wet. In the morning I hang the towel up to dry, and I wash it after a few uses so it doesn’t get mildewy.

2. Ideal sleeping temperature is colder than ideal waking temperature. On colder days, I keep my bedroom window open and my bedroom door closed, which separates my apartment into the “cool part” (the bedroom) and the “warm part” (everywhere else).¹

3. If you walk through my neighborhood in the evening after a hot day, you will see box fans displayed in every window. But not mine, because I bought a portable air conditioner.² Yes, portable ACs are “inefficient” in an electricity sense, but a box fan lowers my apartment temperature by about one degree per hour. Even a “bad” portable AC can get my bedroom down to 68 degrees in under 30 minutes.³

4. I buy only one kind of sock (specifically, Hanes X-Temp Cushioned No Show Socks—I tested four different brands and this one was my favorite of the four). Not only do I not need to match my socks, I don’t even need to pair them; I just throw them in a pile in my sock drawer.

5. I live in a high-cost-of-living area, which means groceries are expensive. I order non-perishable groceries online and have them delivered, which is somehow both cheaper and more convenient than buying them at the store.

6. When I do go to the grocery store, I go first thing in the morning because the store is nearly empty at 7am. (This strategy doesn’t work if you don’t wake up until later.)

   I am not much of a morning person, but I force myself to go to the store right after waking up and then I’m allowed to chill out and do nothing for the next couple hours.

7. I keep a backup of every basic household item so that I never run out. When I break out the backup, that means it’s time to buy more. I have two bottles of shampoo, two boxes of peppermint tea, two cartons of soymilk (actually six but who’s counting), two packs of razor blades, two bottles of vitamins, …

8. Many people lament that fitted sheets are too hard to fold. I don’t fold my fitted sheets; but I don’t not fold them, either. My strategy is to always have one set of sheets on my bed and one set on the hamper. When I do laundry, the sheets come off my bed and into the hamper, and the freshly cleaned set goes onto the bed. No folding necessary. And I don’t need to remember to strip the bed before doing laundry, because there’s always a set of sheets waiting to be cleaned.

Posted on Nov 29, 2025

Notes