Tasks Made Easier

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Everyday tasks with one hand

Most everyday tasks use one hand to hold and the other to act. When one hand is out of use, for six weeks in a cast or for good, the trick is getting something else to do the holding. These guides start with what you already own.

Guides by task

Kitchen

Bathroom and grooming

What to buy first

What changes with one hand

Watch someone open a jar or slice bread and you'll see their hands split the work: one holds, the other moves. The holding hand gets little credit, but without it the jar turns along with the lid, the loaf slides away from the knife, and a shoelace loop falls open as soon as you let go. Most of what makes a task hard with one hand is this missing grip, not a lack of strength.

So nearly every method on this site replaces the holding hand with something else. Friction can do it (a damp cloth, a rubbery mat, a rubber glove). So can weight (a heavy pan to push food against), clamping (your knees, or a drawer pushed shut with your hip) and fixed surfaces (a counter edge, a wall, the corner of the sink). Once you start looking for these, you'll find one for most jobs.

Which hand you still have makes a difference. If it's your dominant hand, the main problem is holding. If you're left with your non-dominant hand, fine control is harder too: a knife wanders, writing is slow, a small lid is fiddly to start. That usually gets easier with practice, and in the meantime it helps to pick slower, steadier ways of working, like rocking a knife instead of sawing with it.

Your one hand also does all the work. It lifts, carries, twists and cleans with no chance to swap, so the forearm and thumb can be tired by evening. You also lose the spare hand you'd normally use to steady yourself on a rail or to carry a second thing. Tools that are fixed to a surface, or that do the gripping for you, save effort as well as time.

Expect things to take longer at first, because setup is now part of the job: the towel goes under the board, the jar goes in the drawer, the bottle gets opened before you step into the shower. A few habits, such as closing lids loosely and keeping daily items at waist height, save more time than any single gadget.

If you'll have both hands back in a few weeks, a handful of free tricks and one or two cheap tools usually cover it. If one-handed is long-term, it's worth setting up tools that stay put, like a jar opener screwed under a cabinet or a spiked cutting board, so each task starts ready to go.

Common mistakes

  • Tools that need two hands to set up. Plenty of gadgets sold as one-handed only work that way once they're in place. If fitting a blade, tightening a clamp or pressing a suction base down takes both hands, you'll need help every time. Check how it's attached and adjusted, not just how it's used.
  • Suction bases on the wrong surface. Suction feet hold on glass, glazed tile and smooth laminate. On textured counters, wood grain, grout lines or a dusty surface they let go, usually halfway through the task. Test the exact spot you'll use before relying on it.
  • Using the injured arm as a clamp. It's tempting to tuck a jar under a sling or squeeze a box against a healing arm. Unless your care team has said that arm can take pressure, brace things against furniture or between your knees instead.
  • Buying a full kit for a short cast. For a few weeks in a cast, a damp cloth, pump soap, a shower cover for the cast and one kitchen tool usually get you through. Save mounted and electric tools for when one-handed is long-term.
  • Keeping heavy things up high. Lifting a heavy pan or a big bottle down from above your head is a two-handed move. Move what you use every day to between hip and shoulder height, where one hand can slide it out and lower it under control.

Situations