I’m Lowell Headdings From How-to Geek, and This Is How I Work
If you’ve been reading Lifehacker for a long time, you are probably also familiar with How-To Geek . Lowell Headdings began sharing his own technology tips and best practices many years ago after being frustrated with the scant information found elsewhere, and we reference his work frequently.
How-To Geek is now running a neat business with Lowell at the helm, and I think we need to learn a little about how it works.
Location: Octon, Virginia. Current Job: Founder of How-To Geek . I am also the editor-in-chief, programmer, system administrator and CEO. One word that best describes how you work: Intentional Current mobile device: iPhone 6 Current computer (and what OS is it running on?): MacBook Pro (2015) and OS X Yosemite
First, tell us a little about How-To Geek and your role in it.
Most Lifehacker readers are at least briefly familiar with How-To Geek, but you may need a little more information to understand what I am doing.
I started this site in late 2006 by reading a support article on the Microsoft site. Their background information was so poor that I decided it was time to create my own website. Why couldn’t they just show me a picture to help me figure out what I’m looking at? My timing was lucky because by the time Windows Vista was released, How-To Geek had more articles on how to fix this problem than anyone else, and our articles had images to make it easier to understand. And of course Vista was so annoying that our traffic spiked overnight. Once again, their failures helped me.
After working on the site for several years as a part-time job, How-To Geek got big enough that I started doing it on my own about five years ago.
Since then, we’ve grown into one of the largest non-news sites on the Internet, with 14 million unique monthly visitors, 100,000 daily email subscribers and 10 employees.
I am the editor-in-chief, which means that I set the tone for what we publish, endorse specific topics suggested by our authors, and generally check that articles meet our standards before they are published or, more importantly, before they are published. … even written.
But I am also the system administrator for many of our servers, and since I was a programmer for 10 years before How-To Geek, I also write all the code for our complex setup. And that doesn’t include my responsibilities as CEO of a business dealings and strategy company, trying to balance making money and being ethical in the terrible world of online advertising.
What apps, software and tools can’t you live without? Why?
The most important thing I can’t live without is Slack . I use it every day to connect with my team of writers and assistants wherever I am – at least 50% of the time when I communicate with my team, I do it from my iPhone.
The second most important thing I use is Trello , which is mainly used for storing ideas, brainstorming, and tracking projects. Most people think of Trello as a to-do list, but this is a very simplistic way of looking at things. It’s better than any other idea gathering tool, including Evernote, because you can organize things by boards, lists, and cards, and then even delve deeper into checklists, comments, and more.
Everything else I use is replaceable – I’ve switched between Chrome and Safari a few times, text editors and note taking tools are a dime a dozen and even the operating system I use doesn’t matter, although I prefer OS X and iOS and we plan to never switch back to Windows or Android.
How is your workplace arranged?
I have an IKEA Galant desk , a comfortable chair from somewhere … and a MacBook. But my workplace is often the kitchen table, sofa, or hotel room.
What’s your best time-saving shortcut or life hack?
The most important thing I’ve learned for my job is to hire really good people I trust, make sure they get paid well for the job they love, and let them do what they do best. … This makes my job a lot easier – all I have to do is point them in the right direction, approve of what they are working on, and give them constructive criticism if necessary.
On a personal level, I wake up in the morning and work on what I feel like working on. If I don’t feel like working, I don’t work … but this is rare, because I do what I love. So I want to do them, and I am very happy to start working in the morning and motivated to do something. And this is the whole trick: doing what you love is the best life hack.
What’s your favorite to-do list manager?
Trello, although I rarely use it as a to-do list and more as a list of ideas that I should probably think of when I feel like it. When I have certain things to do on a certain day, I usually use the iPhone Reminders app.
What device, besides a phone and a computer, can you not live without and why?
I have an iPad that I use at night in front of the TV or when I travel, and at the moment this is my only other gadget – although I should have gotten my Apple Watch by the time this article was published, so we’ll see if that changes.
What are some of the things you do best in everyday life? What’s your secret?
This is a difficult question, so I decided to ask my wife. According to her, my secret talent is to devote time to my wife and little son every day and at the same time do my job.
I try to stop working every day around 13:00, and we leave the house and spend time with the whole family until the end of the day. I keep in touch with my team using Slack on iPhone, which conveniently notifies me every time someone sends me a direct message. And at night I rewrite my email or whatever before bed.
Because what’s the point of wasting the best part of your day at work? We should turn that around and instead spend most of our days enjoying the family.
Working at random hours during the day because society is stuck in a factory mindset doesn’t make sense and by the time most people get home from work they only have a few hours before bed to spend with their family and get tired … After all, we are information workers and we don’t need sunlight to do our jobs.
What do you listen to while you work?
Most of the time I don’t listen to anything while I’m working because I just don’t have the time or energy to make music. I prefer white noise watching Netflix marathons on TV while I work, which sounds crazy, but it really works for me. If I am very focused, I will not even pay attention to what is playing most of the time. Who doesn’t love the repetition of futurama?
What are you reading now?
Every day I check and read Ars Technica and the Food Lab column on serious nutrition , and am currently reading Guy Kawasaki ‘s excellent business book The Art of Beginning 2.0 . Most of the time, however, I read articles I found via Twitter and saved in Pocket for reading on my iPhone.
Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
I’m probably more of an introvert, but in reality I’m just silent if I really don’t know you or I don’t have a reason to talk.
When I was a child, I was taught that you should never say if you are not sure that what you are saying is correct, because if you say something inaccurate, an intelligent person will look like a fool, and if you keep your mouth shut, then a fool will make you look wise.
What is your sleep pattern?
I’ll have to talk to my sleep coordinator … whenever he learns to speak. He knows how to say yes, yes, but I’m afraid one-year-olds are very demanding craftsmen. I usually wake up with him in the morning around 6:30 and believe it or not, this is the best time of the day because he always smiles when he sees me in the morning.
Fill in the blank: I would like _________ to answer these same questions.
Most of the people I would like to see answered these questions are dead.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Many years ago, a very intelligent man named Matt Tabrizi told me, “It’s always best to just start, because it’s easier to change direction when you’re already moving.” This is very similar to advice written by the very clever StackExchange co-founder Jeff Atwood, who wrote, “Come here , real quick. If something gets in your way … turn around. ” Over the years, I have found this advice to be irreplaceable and accurate.
Stop talking. Stop getting hung up on planning every detail. Stop pretending to be productive by making a to-do list and reading self-help books. Just shut up and do something.
What else would you like to add that might be of interest to readers and fans?
If there is one person I really would like to publicly thank, it is Gina Trapani , Founding Editor of Lifehacker. Without her support and the frequent appearance of How-To Geeks on Lifehacker in the early days, it would have been much more difficult to get to where we are now.