Darren Barefoot is a writer, technologist and marketer living in Vancouver. He is the co-founder of Capulet Communications, a web marketing agency that works with non-profits and technology companies. Darren is also a professional speaker and has presented in front of a wide range of companies and non-profits.
Are you a morning person? What time do you get up and moving? What are the first few things (work/business/personal) that you do each morning?
I’m definitely not a morning person. Sleeping in until 8:30 is one of the great joys of self-employment. Mind you, I usually work from home, so my work day starts at 8:31.
I’m definitely not a morning person. Sleeping in until 8:30 is one of the great joys of self-employment. Mind you, I usually work from home, so my work day starts at 8:31.
I’ll generally start my day by checking my email, reviewing my task list for the day and skimming RSS feeds and social media channels.
When do you first check your email? And how many emails do you get a day?
Pretty much as soon as I’m conscious. Excluding spam, I probably get 40 to 50 emails a day.
Do you have any tips for dealing with email? (Any techniques or tools you use?)
I wrote about how I approach email in a recent blog post:
Process every email as soon as you read it. If you can respond and archive it in less than two minutes, do so. Otherwise, I assign myself a task in my task management tool, associate the message’s URL (I use Gmail for my sundry email accounts) with the task and archive it. The email is no longer occupying space in my inbox, but I’ve got a reliable way to find it when I’m going to work on the associated task.
Process every email as soon as you read it. If you can respond and archive it in less than two minutes, do so.
What’s the most interesting thing about your job?
The thing I enjoy most about our work are the creative projects we get to be involved in. From inventing a fake company for a marketing campaign to visualizing 15 years of restricted movies, I’m delighted by finding creative solutions to problems.
You do a lot of speaking, writing and running a business. How do you approach productivity? What challenges do you have in this area? How are you overcoming them? Any tips for others?
I’m a born procrastinator, so being fascistic about a to-do list is essential. I use a tool called Remember the Milk, which enables me to tag, prioritize and assign tasks as they come in.
Do you have a good work-life balance? If no, why? If yes, how do you achieve it? What are you beliefs around this?
I feel like the notion of work-life balance is for people who don’t like their work. Most days, I enjoy our work, so I don’t feel I need to somehow balance it out with non-work. Also, frankly, humans are made to work—it’s what we’ve done for all of history—so it seems entirely natural.
To put it another way, I’m not a workaholic, but I’ve always found the idea of “closing the door on your home office” a little laughable. We spend more hours working than any other activity besides sleeping, so it ought to be a welcome, integral part of our life.
Can you share a personal or business challenge that was hard to deal with and how you overcame it and what you learned from it?
One of the challenges we’ve faced at Capulet is identifying what we’re not good at and what we don’t want to do. We were inclined, like most people, to say “yes” when people come to us for work. Over the years we’ve discovered that, for example, we don’t really want to manage web design projects. The first few times we declined that work, it was a little tough to say, “no thanks, we don’t want your money.”
But narrowing our work, both in terms of industries we work in and the actual work we do, has been rewarding. So, I always advise people to get on what we call The No Train. Don’t be afraid to turn down work that doesn’t feel like the right fit.
Don’t be afraid to turn down work that doesn’t feel like the right fit.
What inspires you?
I try to consume a lot of art, going to galleries, theatre, movies and so forth. Also, I travel for pleasure quite a bit. I find these activities to be refreshing for my mind, and I can often find inspiration in the work.
What is your favourite quote of all time?
“Hold on tightly, let go lightly”. I heard it in a British movie called Croupier. Clive Owen says it, so that may have helped embed it in my memory.
What is one thing that your coworkers, clients or friends may not know about you?
I have a love of musical theatre.
In your industry, what is the biggest trend or opportunity you are seeing right now?
One of my favourite marketing quotes is “safe is risky, and risky is safe”. Marketing guru Seth Godin said that, and it’s an idea that’s fundamental to our work. We believe that if you only do what everybody else is doing—advertising, SEO, social media and so forth—you’re never going to beat your competitors by more than a little. The big wins are in creating truly remarkable—meaning “worthy of being remarked upon”–web campaigns. This is hard, risky work, but it’s the most likely path we see to success.
If you weren’t doing what you’re doing now, what would you be doing?
Even before I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, I wanted to be an archaeologist.