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 home office, I built a custom sit-stand desk to which I connected a big, kidney shaped glass top which I got for cheap at Ikea. Kidney-shaped desk tops are, I think, the most efficient of all possible desk shapes.

I spend a fair amount of time just thinking about whether something is feasible or not, and if it is feasible, whether it's really worth doing.

I'm a writer and I also do a lot of professional speaking on risk taking and creativity as well.

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.

When something good hits me, I'll use Siri to make a note so I don't forget.

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.