You get energy from other people, so hang out with energetic people.

I've seen Leonardo Da Vinci notebooks which are filled with tiny, messy scrawls written in mirror image across the page. I'd love to know how he kept all his projects going at once.

In my workshop, I like to have the TV on for background noise, but I only put on shows that you don't really need to watch in serial order; stuff you can glance up every once in a while and still know what's going on; for example, Cops reruns, Jeopardy!, and Forensic Files.

I think it's important to associate with positive, upbeat people.

I get some of my best ideas while out walking.

I work with a lot of different editors at different publishers and magazines and so on, and having a system of shared folders makes keeping track of things a snap.

I specialize in science and history, with a special emphasis on including do-it-yourself projects in the mix. My dozen or so books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. I'm also a contributing editor at Popular Science and at Make Magazine.