7 ways to make the most out of your most useless skill (2024)

I must admit that I am a confirmed profile addict – nothing irritates me more than an incomplete profile of my humble person in a social or rather not social network or any site that requires user login and details.

Again nothing gives me more pleasure than to diligently fill in all the required fields, upload photos even at places where it is strictly advised not to do so, and welcome any change in the website rules that requires additional information or amends in some way the already created profile. Yes, that also includes payment means and I have been warned.

So, you can possibly imagine my utter and complete joy when I happened to discover that Airbnb has made a profile information change and a clever one at that.

Among other tongue-in-cheek prompts, it now requires me to list my “most useless skill”.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, you little brilliant copywriter that I do not know.

It took me more than a blissful half an hour of ransacking through the abundance of useless skills that I have amassed in life to list the most useless one and describe it in only 40 characters.

It also inspired me for this list that celebrates usefulness in its most profoundly useful way, in life, career, and everywhere.

1. Bring in a good mood – practicing something of apparent usefulness can make you happier, more relaxed, and increasingly likable to others and we all know what popularity means nowadays.

2. Competitive edge – everyone is rushing to single out the next “serious and useful” profession that AI will take over. Hands down, AI is more serious and useful than any of us, so, chances are our useless skills will make us more marketable and maybe even rise to the standard of a new profession that AI will have no chance to steal.

3. Adaptation – if people sometimes call you weird that is not necessarily a bad thing. Your uselessness in practical matters can lead to a theoretical advantage in trying out new things that have been ruled out as “crazy”. If circ*mstances change, your useless skill will make you more adaptable than traditional folks, like those who hope to retire in the same job.

4. It is all about the brain. The weird thing, it strikes like lightning in places where you expect it the least. Putting it through an unusual routine will generate who knows what – creativity is no stranger to happenstance.

5. Knowledge is power. Any kind of it, full stop.

Before you rush to Airbnb to update your profile, please take your time to read the title and then go through the list above.

You may be wondering why only five, well - blame it on my useless skills, this will only make me happier.