Life Hack - cutting board mousepad

(Left) $0.89 cutting board
(Right) $19.99 gaming mouse pad

It's nice to have a reliable flat surface to serve as a mouse pad. Traveling around, I sometimes use a laptop on a couch armrest or an unconventional table surface that doesn't track mouse movements well - like glass or polished stone, for example.

I've been using a gaming mouse pad that's served me well. So well, that lately I've wanted to buy a second so I can keep one in my car and one in my backpack.

I've had a hard time finding rigid mouse pads in stores, because apparently they aren't that popular. Best Buy sells a $20 pad, but it is out of stock at every location I try.

So I tried substituting a plastic cutting board, which can be found anywhere. Surprise, it's actually quite good for tracking mouse movements!

It obviously doesn't perform as well as the real thing, but it works and it's cheap and it's very portable.

If I wanted to spiff it up a little, I could add felt feet to the bottom so it doesn't slide around and glue a soft mouse pad onto the top. Not high priorities for my needs but it would be easy to do.