The term life hack was coined in 2004 at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego. It first meant the “scripts and shortcuts productive IT professionals use to get their work done.” In 2005 the American Dialect Society voted lifehack the runner-up for most useful word of the year, behind podcast.
The meaning soon spread beyond computers. A life hack is now “any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty improvisation that increases productivity and efficiency in life.”