Smudging important documents and looking like an idiot while trying to figure out a can opener are just two of the many things left-handed people deal with on a daily basis.

With only about 10 per cent of the world population being left-handed, it can be hard to adapt into a world designed for righties.

International Left-Handers Day on August 13 is one of those days where left-handed people can come out of the woodwork and be acknowledged for their quirks.

As a left-hander myself, I often found activities challenging such as sport, music and crafts.

I noticed that other left-handed people adapted to their environment by copying the people around them, who presumably were right-handed.

Unfortunately, I wasn't like that, and to this day I still have my own left-handed scissors at work, non-smudgeable pens that never seem to work and strum a guitar upside down.

If you think I'm exaggerating there is scientific proof that lefties have it rough.

According to Flinders University's School of Psychology professor Mike Nicholls, as a group, left-handers do slightly worse overall.

In a study he found that left-handed people aren't any more gifted than right-handed people.

'The evidence, based on our analyses of very large databases of handedness and other attributes in people across Australia, the UK and the USA, doesn't bear out that myth,” says Mike.

'Our study of members of the same family confirms that left-handed children will do worse than their right-handed siblings.”

This covers a wide range of skills in things like vocabulary, mathematics and teachers' ratings of children's performance at school.

This could have something to do with the lack of left-handed friendly items or just something built into our genes, but Mike says he is surprised there isn't more options.

"I'm amazed there isn't more being done to better design the built environment for left-handers," he says.