About

Hi, I’m Gina Trapani. This is my personal blog about creativity and other topics that interest me. I write it for myself and for others who want to connect with the joy of making stuff.

About me

I’m a writer and programmer based in New York City. My pronouns are she/her. I live with my daughter and my wife, who I married well before same-sex unions were legally recognized in the U.S. Despite my name I don’t speak Italian but I do talk with my hands. I’m a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, a cancer survivor, an Enneagram 3, a personality test skeptic, and a longtime Gillian Anderson fan. I’ve loved the web since the moment I laid eyes on Mosaic in the mid 90s.

I’m a recovering achiever. Once upon a time I started Lifehacker and I used to obsess about personal productivity. My current life hack is to focus on loving what I do versus getting things done. Note to Self is about that realignment. I’m reprioritizing creativity over productivity, inner attunement over outer attainment, and joy as the business model.

During my career in technology, I got lucky enough to work hard in many roles, from intern to CEO. These days I’m spending my time doing what I love most: writing and making software. You can see my my full career details on LinkedIn and my recent projects here.

What you’ll find here

There are three main types of content on this site: posts, quotes, and links. Posts are my writing. Quotes are others’ words. Links point to work around on the web.

I like to write about many topics, including: weird and wonderful art and digital projects; creative process and tools; the role of AI in thinking and creativity; redefining success; healthier relationships with money; fulfillment as a motivator; and practice over winning.

This isn’t a news blog. I post items that are new to me as well as things I’ve loved enough over the years to revisit. Even the most heavily-circulated stuff from years ago is new to someone today. Sometimes I’ll backfill and backdate a piece I published elsewhere here.

I try to write in clear plain language. I’ll keep it brief to respect your time.

As a classic blog, my posts will be heavy on links and attribution. If you think I’ve missed giving credit where it’s due, please let me know and I’ll correct it asap.

Imagery

I credit the source of all images. I don’t use AI-generated images or stock photography. Not every post will have an image associated with it.

When I want to include an image with a post but there isn’t an obvious one to feature, I use my own original photography. You’ll be able to tell I’m not a professional photographer. My amateur snapshots add some visual grittiness, and that’s okay by me. I’d rather this site feel personal and custom versus slick and cookie-cutter. I miss that on the web these days.

Call-outs

Every few posts you’ll see a specially-styled pinned post I named a “call-out.” Call-outs highlight non-profit organizations, products, or services I recommend. I only feature organizations I have personally donated to, and products and services I have personally paid for in my call-outs.

Call-outs often contain an affiliate or referral link which kicks back fees or benefits to me if you use those links to sign up. In those cases, I will spell out what’s in it for you and me if you use that link.

The list of currently-published call-outs changes over time, and their position in the post list rotates daily.

How to use this site

This site has few features by design, but there are a couple things you can do.

Search: Press Cmd-/ or tap the magnifying glass icon on the top right of any page to quickly search the contents of the site.
Switch themes: This site has a light and dark theme and defaults to your system setting. To switch themes, tap the icon in the footer.
Time-travel: Check out past posts in the archives. Here are posts, links, and quotes.
Feed or follow: To get new posts in your feed reader of choice, subscribe to the Note to Self feed. You can also follow Note to Self on Bluesky.

Mostly: Browse and enjoy. Take away what’s useful and leave the rest behind.

If you’d like posts delivered to your email inbox, join the Note to Self email list. About once a month, I send out a digest of the 10 best posts, quotes, and links that have published since the last installment. To preview what you’ll get, check out the email archives.

When you sign up, you’ll receive an email confirming your subscription. The newsletter is free. I won’t spam you or sell your email address. You can unsubscribe any time.

Contact me

I’d love to hear from you. You can send me a message on Bluesky, or via email to gina(at)notetoself.studio. I’m interested in what you and your friends are working on, what inspires you, and what your creative process is like. I welcome thoughts on anything I’ve posted here and website suggestions and bug reports. I will read everything I receive, even if I can’t always reply.

Colophon

The free tools available to make your own website are better than ever.

This website is a collection of HTML pages generated by Hugo and hosted on Netlify by way of GitHub. I designed and built the theme from the ground up in Cursor with Claude’s assistance.

I write posts in Markdown using Obsidian myself. A collection of useful Obsidian plugins streamline my publishing workflow, including Templater, Dataview, Web viewer, Permalink Opener, Git, and Obsidian Web Clipper.

This site uses Steph Ango’s Flexoki color palette, the Schibsted Grotesk and Inter typefaces, Noto Emoji for the notebook icon, Craig Mod’s Fast Search, Beam for analytics, and Buttondown for email. Yves Klein is my favorite kind of blue.

This site was inspired by my favorite blogs on the web, including Simon Willison’s Weblog, Live Laugh Blog, Kottke.org, The Marginalian, Anil Dash, A Working Library, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, and many more.

I made this website because I didn’t want to be limited by or married to a platform like Substack or WordPress. It is a continual work in progress. I take a lot of joy in building and improving it.

Thanks for reading.