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Hi. My name is Adam. I am the co-founder of Pure Adapt, Inc in Albany, NY. We own Detailed Image, LockerPulse, and a bunch of other websites. I write about our company, entrepreneurship in general, work-life balance, and whatever else interests me.
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Category Archives: Productivity
The Advantage of Skimming
Sometimes I think skimming gets a bad rap. We’re worried that people in the future won’t be able to focus long enough to comprehend anything of real value. While there’s likely some truth to that, I also see huge opportunity and huge value in skimming…especially for business owners. Half of the battle when it comes to making business decisions in our current landscape is knowing what’s possible. Whether we’re talking specifically web development (HTML5, CSS3, responsive design, etc), or any other aspect of running a business – marketing, customer service, human resources, legal, accounting, strategy, and the like – it’s … Continue reading
Trading Hours
@DHH wrote a really interesting blog post yesterday about what he calls “flipping the day“: Most days I work from 1pm to 9pm here in Spain, which translates to 6am to 2pm Chicago time. That gives me all the time before lunch to enjoy the light of day and all the activities that encourages. I find myself more interested in working out, more eager to read books, and generally infused with more energy for both physical and mental activities. Over the past few years my average sleep schedule has been roughly 10 PM – 6 AM. When you compare that … Continue reading
Standing Desks are Awesome (and exhausting)
In August I pulled a muscle in my back. It was bad enough that sitting for long periods of time became uncomfortable. This was a big problem because, well, I sit all day long while I work. About a year ago I wrote about my efforts to sit less, which included using a standing station for my laptop sometimes. In that post I outlined all of the mounting research that suggests that sitting all day long can be bad for you. After that I continued to make a conscious effort to stand and move more in general. Still, I spent … Continue reading
College News on LockerPulse: Start to Finish in 5 Days
On Tuesday morning I received an email from two people at Google asking for some vector graphics for LockerPulse. They said that they were going to be featuring it in an upcoming March Madness promotion, presumably for the Chrome Web App Store, although they didn’t specifically say so (“March Madness” refers to the NCAA basketball tournament that starts this Sunday night with the selection show, with play beginning Tuesday). This would be an awesome opportunity to promote LockerPulse, especially because we haven’t really started our full-fledged marketing campaign. There was just one problem: LockerPulse didn’t cover college sports, something that … Continue reading
My Productive Fall
Towards the end of Summer I decided to sit down and make a list of things that I wanted to accomplish this Fall before the Holiday Season started. It was a lot – more than I thought I could get to – but I like to challenge myself. We consider our “Holiday Season” to start on November 1. I like to have every new cart feature in place by mid-October so we have some time to work any kinks out before the big rush. I’m taking some time off this week and next week to head back to James Madison … Continue reading
Browsers of Choice
It’s always interesting to me to see what browsers people use. Increasingly I’m surprised by how many non-tech savvy people I notice not using Internet Explorer, something that was rare even a few years ago. First Firefox and now Chrome have done a great job of pushing the idea that not every browser is the same. Just the simple fact that Google hits you with Chrome ads every time you visit Google to do a search or YouTube to watch a video has led to widespread awareness of the fact that there are other options out there than what came … Continue reading
Why I Check Email First Thing Every Day
Every once in a while when reading an article about email productivity I’ll see a reference to the book Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work by Julie Morgenstern. Right up front I’ll say that I haven’t read the book, but have seen it referenced enough to know the idea behind the technique. From this Lifehacker article Top 10 Smart and Lazy Ways to Save Your Workday: Author of Never Check Email in the Morning Julie Morgenstern suggests waiting for one hour before you open up your email inbox in the … Continue reading
Coffee Shops Don’t Like Being Offices. Opportunity?
The NY Times ran a great story today entitled The New Coffee Bars: Unplug, Drink, Go. There’s a trend amongst coffee shop owners to not allow computers or wi-fi. A few interesting quotes: Name aside, this Café Grumpy is not a cafe. It is, unmistakably, a coffee bar. “I don’t think I’d ever do a bigger space with tables and chairs again,” Ms. Bell said. “I appreciate the idea of when you go someplace and it feels like a home away from home, but I don’t think it should be a home office away from home.” Hers is one of … Continue reading
How Being in Control of Your Work Drastically Reduces Stress (and just might save your life)
Last month Wired Magazine published a fascinating article on the science of stress called Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine. The essence of the article is that while it’s becoming understood that stress has negative emotional, cognitive, and physical effects, we don’t fully understand the depths of what causes stress (for instance, the article talks about how stress endured during childhood or even by a mother during pregnancy can permanently change your DNA), which forms of stress are good for us and which ones are detrimental, nor do we fully understand how to go about “solving” stress (i.e. … Continue reading
Too Busy People
One of my least favorite phrases that people use is “I’m too busy for that”. I don’t really believe that any of us are too busy for anything that’s important to us. We all have the same 24x7x365 to work with, and we all have a large say in how we spend it. What you’re really saying (and what other people hear) when you say “I’m too busy” is “I don’t want to”, or “I’m too important for that”. It sends the wrong message to the people around you. One thing I’ve come to realize lately is that the vast … Continue reading