Is your iPhone refusing to charge? Does your iPhone charge sometimes but not all the time? Do you have to jiggle the lightning connector to get a charge, but even that doesn't always work? Then I have two words for you: pocket lint.

I know, I know, you're an architect or architectural illustrator or product designer and you love your phone, and you take very good care of it, and your clothes are always clean. Why would you have a pocket lint problem? Trust me, you do. Now prepare to be amazed. Before you call the Apple Store Genius Bar, try this simple trick. (Attention: the author is not responsible for you screwing this up! It worked great for me, but use a gentle touch and common sense.)

Step 1) Find a nice clean, long-pointed push pin. (I know, scary, right? Read on!)

Step 2) Gently insert point of pushpin into lightning connector hole, and "rake" with a light touch across the bottom of the hole as if you were cleaning 20,000 year old bones...at an archaeological site (i.e. with extreme caution and common sense so as not to damage any part of the metal contacts).

As you get the feel for this sweeping action, you will begin to feel a remarkable thing: a feeling almost as if someone has taken one of those felt chair foot pads that protect your floors and stuffed a little piece of one into your lightning connector hole! The tip of the pushpin will begin to comb little pieces (at first) and then potentially humongous globs of this compacted lint out of your phone, and you, dear architect, illustrator and product manager, shall again, soon, love your iPhone

Step 3) Behold the gnar!! If all has gone well, you will a) still be alive, and b) be looking at a thing more beautiful than gold: a small cloud of lint that has compacted in on itself every time you have pushed that lightning pin connectore in a little harder over the last few months. Now plug your phone back in, wait for it to learn how to talk to your charger or computer again (it may take a harmless few minutes) and voila, iPhone love again!

That's it, my friends. Stay tuned for more helpful hints, or read something silly about my friend Clark Smith, the best architectural renderer I know, and a sports historian to boot.

(The author is an architectural renderer and architectural illustrator who against all odds, has still somehow found a niche for himself as "a guy who can draw.")