Too much exposure to other people’s opinions or thoughts can drown out your own inner voice; and creativity is all about your individual interpretation of what you encounter in the world. To really develop a strong and individual point of view that is still relevant to the world, not only do you have to understand the world – through socializing – you have to develop and own your unique way of processing the stimuli of the world. But, the constant blizzard of information that we encounter throughout our day makes this a challenge.

This week: do one activity in isolation – away from computers and people – that uses your brain. Here’s a few ideas:

• Check out a book from a library: yeah, that’s right, a paper book. One that doesn’t even have hyperlinks on it. Choose a dense subject which interests you, preferably non-fiction. Read the table of contents, and pick the chapter that makes your brain “salivate” when you read it. Then eat it up. Take notes. Repeat. If you don’t finish the book, who cares? I recently did this with Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide. What subject will you explore?
• Write in your notebook: this is like the writing exercise I talked about, but this time you have to use a notebook – not a computer. This is to slow down your mind to your writing pace, and keep you from checking Twitter every 3 minutes.
• Think: stare at a wall. Stare at a sunset. Just do nothing, and think. I do this habitually, and I swear – it’s like watching television for me.

Or, maybe you have an idea for an isolating activity that helps you develop your own point of view. When you’re done, do some more thinking: how do these new thoughts that you’ve processed – isolated from the day-to-day world – relate to the discussions and subjects you encounter day-to-day?

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This week: attend a social gathering around an interest that is outside of your core competency (but is still something about which you are curious). If you’re a designer, go to a gathering of computer geeks. If you’re an architect, go hang out with some web designers. As you talk with these people, what do you notice about them that is different from what you observe in people from your own field? What are some similarities that you find?

Sometimes when we get too involved in a particular interest, we forget that there are communities around other interests, which approach things differently. I’ve encountered many different communities of interest working in Advertising, traditional Graphic Design, Architecture, and startups – and they all have their own unique ways of seeing the word, and different sets of things which they value.

For example, the people I encountered working in Architecture tended to have an appreciation for design, history, and credentials that was completely different from what I encountered working for startups in Silicon Valley. While an Architect will tend to be interested in the material honesty of a real brick wall vs. a brick veneer – the tech startup person tended to be interested in disrupting the status quo. When I moved to Chicago, I wanted to reconnect with the Architecture community, so I went to a Young Architects Forum happy hour just to get that fresh perspective.

Where can you find these groups with which to meet? Meetup.com is probably the best place, but there’s also Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, or even Craigslist.

So get out there and have some conversations with some people who are passionate about something that may just be a curiosity of yours. It will open your eyes.

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Moving Your Body is important for your creativity not only because it gets your heart pumping, making your brain work better, but also because of the connection between your body movements and your thoughts and feelings.

So, this week, do this thing for your creativity. You don’t have to worry about anything else. Just this one thing…

Do a physical activity or sport that you either have never done, or haven’t done in at least 6 months. I’ve been taking Salsa classes, and, in the past, I have taken improv and acting classes. When first doing these new-for-me activities, it was amazing to feel my brain light up as it discovered new movements and mind/body connections. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, try one of these things:

• Sign up for a (physical) arts class: dance, improv, or acting. You can also find low-commitment drop-ins in your city, just Google “[yourcity] [activity] drop-in classes”
• Sports: play a racket sport such as tennis or racquetball, hit some golf balls at a driving range, go swimming, or go bowling. Have you tried Yoga yet? This week is the week to do it!
• Just goof off: play catch with a friend, do a handstand, or find a pull-up bar to swing around on.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do this week. One physical thing you’ve never done before (preferred), or haven’t done in more than 6 months. You don’t even have to think about it, and you’ll be on your way to being more creative. Let us all know what you did, and how it worked out for you!

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Additionally, I’ve started publishing some more focused how-to content on HeyHowTo.com.

This is just the type of behavior that I tend to exhibit that elicits the response “David, you need to focus.” Presumably, if I would just focus all of my energy towards one of these endeavors, I would see much more success. And faster. Even with the content that I produce, if I were to just keep it all on kadavy.net, I would see more immediate benefit (in the form of a higher Google PageRank) from the age and authority of kadavy.net. Additionally, all of this cognitive gear-switching is supposedly not an efficient way to get things done.

But I just can’t do that. Sure, I try to keep myself in check here and there. Dozens of ideas sit in various moleskine notebooks, and still more don’t even make it onto paper. With each of these fresh starts, some which become false starts, new pathways are stimulated in my brain – and some old, less sharp, pathways are closed. My ability to recognize the strengths and faults of a particular idea is strengthened as time goes on.

I enjoy the process of following my curiousity, and trust that it will bring a more complete life than trying to cram my actions into neat little blocks. With the new pathways that are opened with each fresh start, fresh ideas come for my more established endeavors. It’s liberating to start a new blog – to not think so much about whether a post is right or wrong, or whether it will be right for my modest readership. It’s interesting to see a layout free of clutter. Maybe these characteristics can be incorporated into kadavy.net?

My advice: don’t be afraid of fresh starts. Seek out fresh starts. When you free yourself from your already-established patterns, you invite serendipity. Invite serendipity.

What’s the fresh start you’re starting?

Flower photo by tapperboy

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The database* at that business event who immediately hands you his card and pitches his pitch – before even exchanging one authentic line of dialog with you is reaching. The dear friend of yours who gives you advice from time to time on your business is growing.

The entrepreneur who raises VC money to build a “craigslist killer,” because of “market opportunity” rather than to change the world is reaching. The entrepreneur who shares her knowledge to bring customers to her family business is growing.

Growing builds mountains. Reaching forms shells. Mountains are solid, stable. There for eons. Shells are weak, fragile. Soon to be sand.

Work with what you have. Don’t reach. Grow.

*douchebag is such an ugly word.

Mountain Photo from kiwinz

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You can’t make just one thing.

When you saw a log down into boards, you not only make a board, but you make sawdust. You can then use that sawdust to reinforce concrete – or to clean up puke.

Every day of your life, you are making things. And in making those things, you are making other things. If you go into the kitchen, and cook a meal you haven’t cooked before – even if you make it from a recipe – some new knowledge is being created. Nobody cooks that meal the way you do. Nobody experiences the same tastes you do.

But by virtue of being a human being, the things you do likely are relatable to other human beings. If cooking a meal is the example, it just so happens that all of us eat. So, if you share your unique perspective – this newfound knowledge – it’s likely that someone out there gives a shit. Maybe lots of people do.

If you share all of these byproducts of your experience, most things, very few people will care about. But eventually, a few things that many people do care about will emerge. And those things can serve as a compass to guide you on your journey to an integrated living, and an integrated life.

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So some of the things that are required to be yourself for a living may not sound like you at first. But these things are inside of you somewhere. You may be better at some of the things than the others. You may be really great at some of the things that you haven’t even tried yet. Here are some assumptions that the BYFL way makes about what every human is capable of.

One: You are social

Humans are social animals, and this is a pretty safe assumption. You may think of yourself as a shy person. It may just be that you haven’t unlocked the motivation to have contact with many people. Interacting with a wide range of people is critical to BYFL. They will be your first customers, whether it’s because they read your blog, or they try your product. They will be a feedback mechanism, an advisory board, a support group.

The social aspect of BYFL isn’t about networking. It’s about appreciating what a beautiful thing it is for someone to be free to pursue those things that arouse their curiousity – and to make a living doing such. Then, it is about recognizing that happening with the people you meet – and celebrating it. Do this, and you will never be lonely.

Two: You enjoy writing – whether you know it yet or not

Writing is as much a process as it is a product. It allows us to understand ourselves, and explore the depths of our minds. The lack of desire to write is usually paralysis caused by external expectations. The bounty that lies within that brain of yours is complex. It is almost laughable to think that it could be expressed in words.

This is why you shouldn’t be afraid of the words you write not making any sense. Write whatever pops into your head. Write about the things that seem so basic to you that they don’t need to be written about. Write nonsense strings of words. Write with no audience in mind. You don’t have to publish but a fraction of what you write. The publishable things will come easier if get the nonsense out first.

Three: You are creative

It’s true, some people are more analytical than they are creative, and vice versa. Creativity is important to BYFL because BYFL requires recognizing opportunities to use new tools in technologies in ways that exploit your passions and talents. Sometimes, you’ll be using these things in ways that they’ve never been used before.

If you really think you’re uncreative, it’s probably because you haven’t needed to be creative. Your whole being has been stuck into a rut, and you need some creativity tips.

Four: You are self-motivated

Some people have ended up in a place where they believe that they need to be told what to do. Where they believe they are not self-motivated. This goes completely against human nature. We are always looking out for ourselves. Even in cases where we are directly trying to help others, we are helping ourselves in some way. Each and every one of us needs intellectual activity, social contact, some sense of importance and attention, and finally – some way to make a living. The people who believe they don’t have it in them to pursue their genuine interests have forgotten their childhoods. In most cases, they had love and support, and no responsibilities – and so their minds were free to play creatively. They were intrinsically motivated. Eventually, obligations built up – many of them imagined – and those then became the motivations that informed their actions.

It’s chicken-and-egg, but those obligations are often built up by the pursuit of things. Let’s not kid ourselves: some things are really nice to have. But when those things cannot be had within an integrated, self-sustaining life, they start to take us over. Requests from our bosses become obligations to our bills, rather than opportunities to grow and feed our curiousities.

So, those are the things that I believe are in you. Are they?

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Apple doesn’t want you taking music off your iPod and putting it onto a computer, because they’re worried about unauthorized trading. But if your hard drive crashes and take your entire music collection, being blocked from shifting your iPod contents back onto your new laptop is going to be infuriating. Fortunately, there are ways.

The Do-It-Yourself Windows Solution

If you’re trying to get your music onto a Windows machine, it’s not so hard. Windows thinks of your iPod as a simple storage device, and if you know how to find the files, you can grab them as easily as you’d pull them off a thumb drive.

For step-by-step instructions, check out Method One in this easy-to-digest article. That 2007 article is a little outdated — it goes on to suggest several software programs that are no longer available — but its instructions for getting into your iPod’s hidden music folder (where everything will look like alphabet soup) are still good. Depending on your version of Windows, finding the hidden files might be slightly different process (in Windows 7: After clicking on the iPod under My Computer, click on Folder Options, and under the View tab, select “Show hidden files, folders, and drives.”)

But pay attention to that initial step about not having your iTunes set to automatically sync your iPod, or the first thing you do will be to wipe your iPod clean. The writer here had only tested the technique with music files, which works fine (although you lose the metadata). I haven’t tested it yet with videos and other media.

This video also outlines how to browse – and transfer from – your iPod as if it were just another hard drive:

If you’re looking to get the iPod content onto a Mac, you’ll need a software program that will do it for you.

Free Software Solutions

If you want a program that will transfer music from iPod to PC without you having to do the backdoor work yourself, Sharepod comes pretty highly recommended. Download.com gives it a glowing review, and the program promises to grab songs, pictures, videos and other content, as well as your playlists, album art and ratings, from your iPod (or iPhone) and pull them to your PC.

Floola is a freeware program that offers to do a lot of things besides copy music off your iPod, from copying YouTube videos to synchronizing with your Google Calendar. Comments I’ve seen are strongly positive but, like any free program, slightly mixed. Check out reviews at Download.com and Lifehacker for starters.

If music is your only problem, FreeSync for Mac will readily move the files. If you’ve got video, photos, etc., the maker will want you to pay for the more robust version (see below).

Another free solution is iPod Folder, which works for both PCs and Macs. The drawback: Not only does it not do video, it only handles MP3 files, so if you’ve purchased music from the iTunes store, or ripped your CDs into any format other than MP3, this one won’t help you.

Solutions You Can Pay For

There are a number of programs you can buy for, of course. They’ll usually start you out with a free demo that gives you a number of days and songs before you need the license. I’m limiting the scope of this quick survey to free solutions, but here are a couple of pay-to-play programs that kept popping onto my radar:

First, as I noted in my update to the original music transfer post, there’s iPod to Computer software for PC, which starts with a free trial and goes on to a $29.95 license, and iPod to Mac Transfer program, which licenses at $28. Both are available at my partner site.

Another leading contender is Senuti, which gives you 30 days or 1,000 songs free before asking $18 for a license. Here’s a full review that walks you through the process of transferring your music from iPod to Mac.

iSkySoft, whose FreeSync for Mac moves songs for free, offers to get everything off your iPod with either of two programs, SyncPod for Mac, which will run you $39, or SyncPod for Windows, whose lower price tag ($19) may be due to the greater number of free solutions for the PC user.

What Else Have You Got?

I won’t get around to actually experimenting with these programs and techniques until either the book hits the shelves or a hard drive failure wipes out my iTunes library, but until that great or disastrous day, this post should get you started. If you’ve used any of these programs or techniques, or have a different or better solution, comment away!

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• If you are a Windows user and don’t want to go through all of this hacking, you can buy iTunes Transfer software at my partner site. It will help you back up your library – with playlists – and transfer it to your other computer.
• If you’re trying to transfer music from your iPod to your computer, unfortunately, Apple won’t let you do this freely, but you can buy iPod to Computer software for PC (free trial download), or iPod to Computer software for Mac at my partner site that will allow you to do this.
• if you just have the hard drive of your old PC, Ben has shared with us how to make the transfer
• if you aren’t keen on messing with XML files – and play count isn’t important to you - Oden has a simple process, involving smart playlists, for retaining song ratings when you transfer your iTunes library.
• Collin has a simple way to find out those duplicate songs that you may end up with when transferring your catalog.
• Aaron devised a clever way to transfer while retaining playlists in your collection.
• If you are transferring between Macs, pbaron has a method involving FireWire mode.

[Original post]

Since I’m moving, I wanted to transfer all of my music from the iTunes library on my work computer to the iTunes library on my home computer. This is pretty simple – just transfer my music from my work computer’s iTunes library onto my Firewire Hard Drive, take it home, and transfer the music onto my home computer – but I rely on all of my song ratings, accumulated over thousands of hours of listening to iTunes while I work, to populate my iPod Shuffle with songs from the “My Top Rated Songs” Smart Playlist. I couldn’t find any information on how to transfer my iTunes music, while still retaining my song ratings, but I finally figured it out.

Move Your Music Library

Before you do this, you’ll have to first transfer the actual files to your new computer. You may choose to burn CDs, DVDs, or use a thumb drive; but using a FireWire cable is easiest for large libraries, unless you have a portable hard drive.

Move Your Metadata

Here’s a video tutorial I put together. Written instructions are below.

1. Export the source iTunes library as an XML file (File>Library>Export Library…). This will create a file that holds information about the location, song filenames, and *song rating*!
2. Replace the file paths in your XML file with the path that the songs from the source library will be in when you import them. This path may point to your FireWire Drive, a DVD you have burned, or a temporary folder on your hard drive that you have copied your music to. Just to be sure of the new path, copy one of the files from this location to your library, export your destination library, and look at the file path to that song in the resulting XML file. To actually replace the file paths, I did a Find/Change in TextWrangler but you can just use TextEdit (Edit>Find>Find…).
3. Set the preferences in iTunes in your destination library to “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.” This is under “Advanced.”
4. Import your library (File>Library>Import Playlist…).
5. Delete redundant files. If you’re like me, you have some duplicate songs in your multiple libraries. This is a tedious task, but I plan to do it over time.

Of course, you can prevent all of this by being organized in the first place. I probably should have just had an iPod that I synched with my home computer and brought to work.

If you need help getting the actual files over to your new computer, this video will show you how to copy your music to your new computer using iTunes Home Sharing:

UPDATE: If you’re looking to transfer music from your iPod to your computer, I’ve put together a short guide here. I hope to improve upon it soon, but please share your findings in the comments.

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What it is – I DO here

That is definitely not my coffee.

First, just what it is that I do probably needs some explanation. I’m President and Owner of Kadavy, Inc., which is an S-Corporation that houses my web design consulting services, as well as media properties, such as kadavy.net, Flatmate Meetup, and my share of nom.ms. The ultimate path of this company is not to be a web design consultancy, but I do enjoy that part of the business. Over this past year, Kadavy, Inc.’s revenues have been almost entirely from the web design consultancy, but I project that to change drastically over the next few years.

I choose my web design clients very carefully. My specialty is working with startups because that’s what I get connected with most through my network – and they tend to have progressive work styles. Thus, oDesk Corporation is one of my best clients. I prefer clients who are well-versed at communicating remotely, and are good at collaborating on written thought processes through collaborative documents such as Google Documents, or text-based communication such as Instant Messenger.

I find most meetings to be unproductive. I am many times more effective when I’m able to think independently in an environment that is within my control, than when trying to labor through a thought process with other people on the fly. I find that meetings and discussions have their place when it comes to exploration, but that really making decisions happens more effectively when all of the stakeholders get a chance to process all of the influencing factors and make an informed decision – or better yet, just respect one another’s roles and powers of judgement. This is of course the exception rather than the rule, but I manage to find clients who work this way once in awhile. Those clients, I cherish.

Kadavy, Inc. HQ

I work at home, by myself. I have a small one-bedroom apartment (plus sunroom) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. I use the tiny sunroom as my bedroom. The bed barely fits in this room, and that’s fine with me. It gets a little chilly, but I have a heated mattress pad. I use what is supposed to be the bedroom as my office so I have more space for working. I used to rent an office space with some friends who have their own consulting businesses. It was valuable early on when I needed the mentoring, but the utility eventually wore off, and it got expensive.

I have an IKEA Jerker desk and Aeron chair because together, they can be adjusted to an ergonomic setup for me. My MacBook Pro sits on a laptop stand – again for ergonomics. I mouse with my left hand (more on that later), and use my Wacom Tablet with my right hand. When I’m at my home office, I hook up my laptop to a 20″ Dell Monitor. I bought the desk, chair, and monitor used on Craigslist, mostly using notifications.

I thought that working at home alone would get to me mentally, but it hasn’t yet. It makes it all the better and more motivating to get me out of the house once in awhile, and since socializing is part of my business model (more on that later), that is a good thing.

Starting the day

On a typical morning, my alarm is set on my iPhone timer for 8:18am (setting my alarm for an unusual time is more than a decade old tradition for me). I hit the snooze bar numerous times, and try to really make it out of bed before 10am. In a perfect world, I would meditate first thing in the morning and do some yoga; but I’m unfortunately not quite that disciplined. So, most days, I immediately go into my office and do some work for an hour or so.

The work I’ll do depends upon what I have going on. If I’m in the middle of a billable project, I’ll try to hit that for a bit before I check any e-mail at all. More often, I’ll process e-mail first thing. I immediately archive as many e-mails as I can, and mark as unread the ones that are actionable that it isn’t appropriate to get to at that moment. I loosely subscribe to the Inbox Zero system, and at any given moment, I’m unlikely to have more than 7 e-mails in my inbox. I use Mail.app much more than the web version of Gmail. As great as it is, I don’t get how people can live in the web version of Gmail. Mail is so much more nimble for searching and managing e-mails with keyboard shortcuts for me.

If it hasn’t been determined for me already, I’ll try to get a clear picture of what the day holds for me and write it down on an index card, or write it up in VooDooPad. I practically live in VooDooPad. I’ve heard good things about Evernote, but haven’t gotten around to checking it out because VooDooPad works so well for me. I have a separate document for every project, and every property within Kadavy, Inc. I use it for brainstorming, record keeping, and project management. I find loose text to be the most agreeable format with which to plan, and I can fortunately get away with it since I usually work pretty independently. Even when I work on collaborative documents, I write in VooDooPad first. I often do the same for e-mails. This blog post was drafted in VooDooPad.

Once I have a good idea of what the day has in store for me, I’ll start eating some breakfast. By this time, my AntiRSI has probably already kicked in. It’s a program that monitors my computer usage to remind me to take breaks. I’ve been in some employment situations where I didn’t have the opportunity to take breaks, and I paid the price with RSI bad enough that I now mouse with my left hand. That’s cleared up since I started being more disciplined with taking breaks, but I don’t want to be in that situation again. As an added benefit, the program usually reminds me to take breaks just as my temples start to tense up, and I’m not thinking as clearly anyway.

Kadavy, Inc. is what it eats

Eating right is very important to my business since I’m the only employee. It has a huge effect on my mood, my ability to focus mentally, and since the Kadavy, Inc. health insurance plan sucks, that’s extra incentive. I’ll usually have some granola, some plain yogurt (or rice drink), and some fresh fruit for breakfast. Additionally, I’ll have some whey protein shake (by far the most processed thing that I eat), some Omega-3 pills, and Dr. Weil multivitamins.

Overall, I have pretty unusual eating habits. I discovered a few years ago that I’m better off without wheat, and that really opened up my eyes to the connection between what I eat and how I think and feel. So, I don’t eat bread, I only eat gluten-free pasta. I go easy on the meat and dairy, but have determined that it’s pretty tough to have a balanced diet without at least a little of both of those. I eat almost no processed or sugary foods. I quit drinking soda over a dozen years ago. I don’t drink coffee (I’m too sensitive to caffeine, and “just don’t want to get involved”). I don’t drink juice (too much sugar). I pretty much just drink tons of water, and quite a bit of tea. I have been on a big Chamomile tea kick because I tend to have quite a bit of energy, and it makes me more calm and focused. I’m interested to try this gyokuro tea that Jason Fried has written about because it has an amino acid that synergizes with caffeine to increase focus.

So what do I eat? I try to buy as much as I can from the Farmer’s Market that I live nearby. The food tastes amazing, you can really feel the better nutrition, and I like knowing where my food is coming from, and where my money is going. I also occassionally order nuts such as raw unsalted almonds or cashews, in bulk, from nutsonline.com. When I cook at home, I eat lots of vegetables and brown rice or quinoa. When I eat out, it’s lots of Thai, or Mexican (tacos, since they are corn, rather than flour, tortillas).

Back to work

After (or while) I’m eating breakfast, I’ll do a little more work. I’ll act on what e-mails I can, or if I’m not super busy, I’ll check out what’s up on Twitter. I really love Twitter, and when I get a chance, I actively seek out people whom I can help on there, because I certainly get lots of help from the Twitter ecosystem.

My favorite work is pouring over Analytics, analyzing CrazyEgg clicks, or running and analyzing Google Website Optimizer tests. I also love messing around in Google’s Keyword tool, where I often find keywords that I can use to improve the traffic numbers on my web properties, or to get ideas for new content that I can compete on. I have to be careful with myself on this, because it’s very easily to burn hours on this that don’t wind up being effective. I try to keep myself in check, making sure that I progress towards decisions that will make a real difference for my business.

Thanks to Jelly - I don't have much of a bald spot.

Play and exploration are a huge part of my business model. There are such huge changes afoot in the way we do everything, that you’ll surely get left behind if you are too goal-oriented and don’t exercise your creativity and invite serendipity into your business. A critical component of this exploration is socializing. On most Mondays and Wednesdays, I head to a nearby cafe called Noble Tree to casually cowork (or “mowork” as I stubbornly call it) with a group called Jelly. We have several regulars, and a pretty steady stream of newcomers. Every time I go, I have some sort of “ah-ha” moment from a conversation I have with someone there. There are a bunch of entrepreneurs that come and we really help each other out. It’s almost as if we have equity in each other’s companies simply by virtue of being in the same community. I’ve made more authentic and rewarding business relationships through Jelly and other informal social interactions than I could ever have in an office, where relationships are tainted by false incentives.

I’ve melded this socializing component with continuing education in a group called DIYMBA. We initially formed as a group to read (real) business books, and discuss them; but soon realized we shared good resources in the contacts that we had. So, once a month, we gather for brunch and have a different business person join us. It’s very casual. We pick their brains, then we discuss our challenges with our own businesses. The best part of the group is that we’ve limited the number of members, so we’re comfortable discussing stuff that we wouldn’t be as comfortable discussing if the group changed month to month.

I can’t stress enough how important social capital is to me and my business. It sounds silly to talk about it that way, as if I was saying the word “networking” (a word I can’t stand). I really get a rush out of talking to people who have made a sustainable living out of their passions, interests, and experiences – or who at least have the courage to try. I can actually feel the blood in my veins pump harder just when I think about it. I’ve seen lots of people grow and become successful in this way, and it excites me to no end to imagine how many more of my friends will have done so in 5 or 10 years. Social capital takes a long time to appreciate; but when it does, it’s explosive.

Play and exploration also includes obeying my curiousity in endeavors that don’t have any clear immediate purpose. As Steve Jobs says “you can’t connect the dots moving forward,” and I heed this wisdom, because kadavy.net started on what seems like a whim, and has brought me more enjoyment and success than I anticipated. Lately, I’ve felt very compelled to create video content on my YouTube channel. In pursuit of my impulses – which has incidentally improved the quality of this content – I’ve taken improv classes, script writing classes, and acting classes. It seems like most video bloggers are more likely to spend $1000 on a great video camera, rather than on an acting class; and I think this is a mistake. I challenge myself in my video content to produce it with the simplest tools possible (iSight and iMovie). I’ll upgrade if and when someone gives a shit – which, at about 50 channel subscribers, is not currently the case. If I can’t produce content compelling enough for this to happen, then I can’t justify the upgrade.

Into the night

Some nights, I am abducted by UFOs

Whether it’s a day I go to Jelly or not, I continue to work until I go to bed. Now, I don’t mean non-stop: usually, I’ll have dinner with a friend, and we’ll discuss our work, or I’ll have a class. If I am not working or doing one of those things, I may take a break to cook, or to play my guitar (I’ve been writing some music – another exploratory endeavor); but I’ll usually continue working afterward. If I feel like I need some relaxation and am doing work that’s compatible with it, I’ll put 30 Rock or The Office on Hulu while I work. I listen to different music for different moods, but nothing beats soft lighting and Ryan Adams’s “Gold” for a late-night work session. Occasionally, I’ll read some fiction before I go to sleep, which is usually around 2 or 3am. I really prefer biographical fiction because real experiences are more interesting to me. I’ve enjoyed David Sedaris, Dave Eggers…other authors who aren’t also named David.

I do all of the work for my business. If there is something very technical – like writing a web app from scratch – that I can’t handle, I may hire someone out; but other than that I do everything. Client relations, design, coding, bookkeeping, SEO, writing, tweeting. I’ve tried outsourcing for some small tasks before, but I couldn’t justify it. If money is pouring in and I’m swamped, then I’ll definitely be hiring help. Such is not currently the case. I do hire a CPA to help with my taxes, though.

My work style goes through some intense seasonal changes. The social component of my work is stronger in the summer, and in the coldest and darkest winter months, I’ll usually get really intensely involved in learning new things. I lived in and around San Francisco for three years, and while it was a tremendous period of growth for me, I really missed the inclimate weather, which I have to thank for the majority of any technical skill or knowledge I have. Growing up, going to school, and working in the midwest before SF, I was very productive in the winters. It feels strange to admit, but there’s also something I get out of feeling like I have to survive something – like I have something to fight against. Because that’s the reality of it when you’re in the early stages of entrepreneurship. It’s as if California has too much optimism for me at this point. Not enough reality.

Along with eating well, getting exercise is also important to my work. It’s as much for my mind as it is for my body. When the weather is nice, I get a good deal of exercise from riding my bike around town. I know it’s dangerous, but transportation in America is just absurd enough to make it worth it for me; and I gravitate toward an integrated lifestyle (transportation & exercise at the same time = good). I try to get to Yoga class once a week, which does incredible things for my mood and mental clarity – I really should go more often. If I haven’t managed to do either of the aforementioned, I’ll go jogging. I set my iPhone timer for 15 minutes, use the timer to keep my heart rate in the right range, and when the timer goes off, I set it again, and start jogging back home.

Your write

Writing is my most important activity, which is ironic to me, because my whole career started with wanting to get paid to draw for a living – and I had no interest whatsoever in writing. Writing allows me to express my thoughts and ideas, yet at the same time, acts as a compass because of the rapid feedback that the internet provides. I write about a thought or solution, and if my Analytics, blog comments, and Twitter replies tell me so, I’ll consider digging deeper on that topic. It’s as much a medium of discovery and self-definition as it is of expression.

Even if I am designing something, I can hardly bring myself to do so without writing a great deal about the project first. I need to know the business objectives, brainstorm approaches, collect competitive data, before I design anything. I do this for internal Kadavy, Inc. projects as much as I do for client work.

I also write just to organize my own thoughts and feelings. The medium that I use depends greatly on the nature of the writing. Cursive writing in a Moleskine for more personal writing – or for critical thinking away from the computer, VooDooPad for more business-oriented writing, VooDooPad again for spewing random thoughts that aren’t likely to see the light of day. I also have a whiteboard I made out of tileboard in my office for when my thoughts call for sketching to accompany my writing. I find that using larger muscles in my body to write and draw alters the way I think about an approach.

So, that is the way I work, which could probably also be entitled “the way I live,” but as you can see, there isn’t a huge difference. Somehow this reached over 3,000 words, so if you read all the way to here, you get a cookie.

Photo of Kadavy, Inc. at a cafe is from a Chicago Tribune article on Foursquare, as syndicated by Lakeland, FL’s Ledger.

Photo of Kadavy, Inc. being abducted by a UFO is by Ryan Halvorsen.

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