Lift up your everyday: occupational therapy life hacks

It’s November, so it’s time to celebrate Occupational Therapy Week from 7 - 13 November this year. This year, the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) have created a theme about ‘lifting up your everyday’. 

Royal College of Occupational Therapists are campaigning to give people the knowledge to be able to make changes that will have a positive impact on their lives, using ‘occupational therapy life hacks’ so our Occupational Therapists are sharing simple life hacks that can be incorporated into daily life to support functional skills.

Occupational therapy life hacks are small actions someone can take to find the motivation or overcome new or existing challenges to keep doing the things they love and need to do at home, work, school or play. Occupational therapy life hacks can:

• benefit lots of people 
• provide high impact for a low effort 
• have evidence to support it and will have been successfully used with the target group 
• be fun 
• be easy 
• be free or cheap to do 
• be specific for home, work, school or play (RCOT, 2022). 

Life hack 1:

Tuck a piece of card under your armpit and hold your elbow to your waist to keep the card in place when cutting with scissors to promote stability and increase control.

Life hack 2:

Hold a pom-pom or screwed-up piece of tissue between the pinky finger and ring finger when writing / colouring to encourage the use of the thumb, index and middle finger for a functional and more efficient pencil grasp.

Life hack 3:

Cut a sticker in half and place the pieces inside shoes to help children differentiate which shoe is for which foot by positioning the sticker ‘back together’ when the shoes are the right way round.

Life hack 4:

Save money and make DIY fiddle tools out of everyday objects. For example, fill a balloon with flour or play dough for a DIY stress ball / squeeze ball; use pipe cleaners to twist and wind around your fingers; put hair gel, paint or water beads in a clear sandwich bag, seal with tape & explore as a DIY sensory bag; fasten and unfasten nuts and bolts.

Life hack 5:

Colour with broken crayons or short pencil crayons to support grasp by reducing the length available to hold - naturally encouraging the hand to position itself and grasp in a more practical way.

Life hack 6:

Use simple checklists (use photos, symbols or written words) to sequence activities or daily schedules, promoting independence and supporting the retention of information and actions / skills.