For thousands of years, our species has been guilty of giving more thought to lofty ideological conundrums than to the little everyday things. We spend more time pondering the meaning of life than trying to figure out the smartest way to tell our keys apart. We lose sleep over moral dilemmas, but we never pause to think: is there a more effective way to untie a knotted plastic bag than just yanking and cursing indiscriminately?

Now, the editors at Reader’s Digest are masters of finding extraordinary uses for ordinary things. But when the reliably hilarious peeps over at BuzzFeed took a break from curating the Internet’s cutest cat pictures and instead compiled 18 common day-to-day struggles (and ingenious ways to get through them), we were impressed. From using a hanging shoe rack for toxic supplies, to cleaning out an old sunscreen bottle and using it to store valuables at the beach—well done! Click here for the full list.