12 Everyday Things That Most of Us Fail to Use Correctly

We tend to go through our daily lives using everyday necessities without ever realizing how to use them correctly. And even though we’ve become accustomed to it, we are actually making our lives more difficult. For example, we know for a fact how to properly use dental floss, how to enjoy our delicious tic-tacs, and what the purpose is of those little bubble pockets in a Toffifay box, or do we? Keep reading to find out what you’ve been doing wrong your entire life.

Bright Side brings to you a list of items that you’ve probably been using incorrectly, and we are shedding some light on the correct way to use them.

1. The tape measuring hack

For anyone who might not be an expert in doing some handy work, the tape measure has a tiny slit at the front of its hook, and it’s there for a reason. So that you can attach a nail or a screw and measure accurately without it moving around or losing its grip.

2. Pots come with a built-in spoon rest to keep your cooking area clean.

Even if you might have thought that pots and frying pans are made to be hung up, the holes on their handles actually serve 2 purposes. To hold your spoon while cooking and to hang the pots in your kitchen.

3. Dental floss should be tied at the edges while flossing to prevent it from sliding off of your fingers.

Since dental floss is coated with dental wax in order to penetrate the tiny gaps between your teeth, it is incredibly easy for it to slide off of one of your fingers while flossing. So, in order to keep it in place without wasting most of it, tie the ends together.

4. Tic-Tacs also come with a built-in pocket to help you eat one at a time

You know the struggle when someone asks you, “Can I have a tic-tac?” and you accidentally pour 3 or 4 in their hand. Well, the tic-tac container comes with a tiny tic-tac pocket that, when you lift it upside down, one tic-tac falls into the pocket and it prevents the rest of them from falling out.

5. Chinese takeout containers unfold into paper plates.

It can be a nightmare to try and eat Chinese food out of those takeout containers, but they are built like that for efficiency. To both ensure that the quantity of the food they place in there is accurate and so that the person eating them can unfold them into a plate later.

6. Keep a straw from rising in your soda by placing it through the metal pull ring.

The gaseous bubbles that are present in soda push the straw up in order to balance the buoyancy with the mass of the straw. That is why the metal tin cans come with a hole in their pull ring: so you can place your straw through it and keep it from rising.

7. Keep extension cords from becoming undone by loosely tying them together.

Extension cables tend to come undone with the slightest pull. To ensure that they stay in-tact and that nothing will be switched off while you are working, tie them into a loose knot. Even if you pull them, the knot will get tighter but it won’t unplug.

8. Drink lids double as drink coasters.

In the case that you don’t want to use the tiny sip hole to have your coffee or cold drink, you can use the lid from your to-go cup as a coaster.

9. Pull your post-it notes diagonally to make sure they stick better.

We’ve all been guilty of doing this, but it’s because we didn’t know better. When taking out a post-it note, we tend to pull them from the bottom up, but by doing that we are causing the paper to fold. The correct way to do it is by pulling it diagonally so that it stays straight.

10. Push on the tiny holes in the Toffifay container to take the chocolate out without struggling.

You might have thought that the container was designed that way for aesthetic reasons but in reality, it was designed that way for practical reasons. When you push on the “magic” marks, the chocolate gets released and you don’t have to dig with your finger in order to get it out.

11. The stapler lets you temporarily staple documents together by adjusting the crimp area.

We all know that staplers are made to join documents together permanently. But for those times that you need to staple something temporarily, you can do that by rotating the crimp area and save yourself the struggle or from having to have a staple remover at hand.

12. The correct way to cut a piece of Toblerone is by pushing it downward.

Our favorite airport chocolate always makes us struggle when we just want one piece. But, in reality, we’ve been doing it wrong all along. Instead of pushing the chocolate pieces backward in order to break them, press the pointy side of the chocolate down in order to get your piece.

Which of these things are you guilty of doing wrong, we would love to read your thoughts in the comments below.