The term 'Lifehack' was coined by British Technology Journalist, Danny O'Brien, following discussions he had been having with people about "secret software"- the scripts and shortcuts (or 'hacks') that programmers write for themselves for routine but time-consuming problems. He knew that these mini-programs aren't often on display, because they're usually too personal to the coder who wrote them, because they are untidy and maybe a bit rough and ready! O'Brien carried out some research of his own, and discovered definite patterns and commonalities among a group of super-productive programmers. In February 2004, at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference, he gave a presentation called " Life Hacks-Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks".

After that presentation, the use of the term "Lifehack" spread like wildfire through the technology and blogging communities, and a whole new movement began, dedicated to the pursuit of clever ways of solving everyday problems. In fact, did you know that the American Dialect Society voted Lifehack as 'the 2nd most useful word of 2005' ? (The actual winner that year was Podcast).

O'Brien started development of lifehacks.com, which never launched. A number of other websites launched which are dedicated to productivity tricks and life hacks.In Sept. 2004, Merlin Mann launched 43folders.com, which is 'about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work'. Blog network Gawker Media launched lifehacker.com in January 2005, and independent blogger Leon Ho launched lifehack.org in May 2005. O'Brien redirected lifehacks.com to 43folders.com.

This article was written by Valerie Redmond, co-founder of RWorks

Valerie writes about time management, productivity, leadership and teleworking issues