Episode 5 – David Kadavy: How To Ride Your Cycles of Productivity
Today on the show we have the very interesting David Kadavy. He’s an entrepreneur, best selling author of the book “Design for Hackers – reverse engineering beauty”. He was an advisor to productivity startup Timeful which was eventually sold to Google. he’s a public speaker, blogs online and his podcast “Love you work” has been featured in iTunes “New and Noteworthy”.
Since Mr Kadavy had such an interesting life so far, I decided to chat with him about quite a few different topics.
We talk about:
- How being fired from his Silicon valley job sent him experimenting until he got his book deal.
- How in order to write his book, David sat in front of his laptop for 12 hours a day to only write for 15 minutes.
- We discuss how the struggle of productivity and the insights that came out of writing his book eventually led to him being approached to advise timeful.
- Why some days and some hours are better for specific types of work, how to work with your natural energy cycles, so you’re doing the right tasks at the right time.
- Specifically, we’ll talk about how David organises different tasks for different days that work best with his own cycles, and other hacks he uses for productivity.
- How Dave devoted his life to curiosity and exploration, and how he takes time to consciously think about issues and break things down.
- His experiences from starting a podcast and how he goes about consistently getting high calibre guests on his show.
Dave has unconventional ideas about productivity and life and he is passionate to share them. I think everyone has something to take from this episode. I hope you enjoy my conversation with David Kadavy!
Listen and Subscribe
- Stream the episode with the web player:
- Download as an MP3 by right clicking here and choosing “Save As”.
Show notes
- Design for Hackers – reverse engineering beauty
- Productivity is about mind management not time management – article by David Kadavy
- Timeful features integrated into Google calendar
- “What I learned about productivity while reinventing Google Calendar” – article by David Kadavy
- “Love your Work” podcast – Episode with John Kunyos
- James Altucher/ The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine
- Possible scientific explanation to why we have more willpower in the beginning of a week?
- The Man Who Listens to Horses: The Story of a Real-Life Horse Whisperer / Monty Roberts
- Deep Work By Cal newport
- The 10 minute Hack – article by David Kadavy
- The “First-Hour” Rule will help you tackle tough projects – article by David Kadavy
- The Motivation Hacker by Nick Winters
- Stuff & Things – article by David Kadavy
- Love your Work Episode 1 with Jason Fried
- Love your Work Episode 25 with Steve Case
Where to find David
“Love your work” podcast on iTunes