Note to Self
@notetoself.studio
A blog & newsletter about creativity over productivity by @ginatrapani.org
📓 Blog: https://notetoself.studio/
💌 Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/notetoself
📓 Blog: https://notetoself.studio/
💌 Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/notetoself
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Note to Self
@notetoself.studio
· Sep 9
Welcome to my blog | Note to Self
Hello world. This is my new blog. I’ve been writing it in private for awhile now, so I’m glad you’re here. Check out what it’s all about, then I hope...
notetoself.studio
It's launch day! 💙 📓 🚀 This is my new blog, an actual ongoing note to myself about joy over productivity buff.ly/Yrt7tYo
The November edition of the newsletter is out now: subscribe to get a healthy serving of warm & tasty links delivered to your inbox once a month
🐎 Wild horses
Let's get weird.
buff.ly
November 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
The November edition of the newsletter is out now: subscribe to get a healthy serving of warm & tasty links delivered to your inbox once a month
How many ways could you make an animated horse run with your computer? Here's a dozen ways, including with fingerprint smudges on a MacBook screen
Entrance
The art of interacting incorrectly
buff.ly
November 23, 2025 at 12:51 PM
How many ways could you make an animated horse run with your computer? Here's a dozen ways, including with fingerprint smudges on a MacBook screen
You didn't know you wanted to search and read Jeffrey Epstein’s email as if you were logged into his Google account until Jmail
Jmail, logged in as jeevacation@gmail.com
You are logged into jeevacation@gmail.com, Jeffrey Epstein's email. Sourced from the November 2025 House Oversight Committee data release.
buff.ly
November 22, 2025 at 9:39 PM
You didn't know you wanted to search and read Jeffrey Epstein’s email as if you were logged into his Google account until Jmail
Lily Allen's newest album - a devastating story set to the catchiest beats - just "fell out of her" in a mere 10 days in the studio
Lily Allen's West End Girl | Note to Self
Like everyone else on the internet, I’m completely obsessed with Lily Allen’s newest album, West End Girl. Allen wrote and recorded all 14 devastating and...
buff.ly
November 9, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Lily Allen's newest album - a devastating story set to the catchiest beats - just "fell out of her" in a mere 10 days in the studio
The idea that building new things is more valuable than maintenance or care is capitalist BS worth deprogramming.
Maintenance versus making | Note to Self
I haven’t made anything new in awhile and it doesn’t feel good. I’ve been looking after a family member who had surgery, so most of my time has been spent...
buff.ly
November 8, 2025 at 12:51 PM
The idea that building new things is more valuable than maintenance or care is capitalist BS worth deprogramming.
Why do coffeeshops, book covers, and YouTube thumbnails all look the same? "We’re in a crisis of conventionality, an epidemic of the mundane."
The Decline of Deviance
Where has all the weirdness gone?
buff.ly
October 31, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Why do coffeeshops, book covers, and YouTube thumbnails all look the same? "We’re in a crisis of conventionality, an epidemic of the mundane."
step 1: learn to quilt
step 2: get an invite to a Fierstein bitch & stitch session www.vulture.com/article/harv...
step 2: get an invite to a Fierstein bitch & stitch session www.vulture.com/article/harv...
Harvey Fierstein Is Now a Full-Time Quilter
The seven-time Tony winner is writing a book on his later-in-life career change.
www.vulture.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:35 PM
step 1: learn to quilt
step 2: get an invite to a Fierstein bitch & stitch session www.vulture.com/article/harv...
step 2: get an invite to a Fierstein bitch & stitch session www.vulture.com/article/harv...
What does it look like to be neither an AI cheerleader nor doomsayer in practice? Here’s what measured AI looks like for me
Measured AI | Note to Self
The extreme hype surrounding generative AI and technologies like LLMs has been exhausting over the last few years. Coupled with fear-based marketing...
buff.ly
October 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM
What does it look like to be neither an AI cheerleader nor doomsayer in practice? Here’s what measured AI looks like for me
Thoughtful guidance for anyone on their way back to their true work
The Year I Left Design
And How I Found My Way Back
buff.ly
October 18, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Thoughtful guidance for anyone on their way back to their true work
Three ways to make stuff:
1. make things you want by yourself or with people you choose
2. make things you must with people chosen for you on a schedule set by someone else
3. perform all the capitalist ceremonies of #2 without actually making anything yourself
1. make things you want by yourself or with people you choose
2. make things you must with people chosen for you on a schedule set by someone else
3. perform all the capitalist ceremonies of #2 without actually making anything yourself
October 18, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Three ways to make stuff:
1. make things you want by yourself or with people you choose
2. make things you must with people chosen for you on a schedule set by someone else
3. perform all the capitalist ceremonies of #2 without actually making anything yourself
1. make things you want by yourself or with people you choose
2. make things you must with people chosen for you on a schedule set by someone else
3. perform all the capitalist ceremonies of #2 without actually making anything yourself
When you want to go in a certain direction, ask yourself: Which part of me has the wheel?
Who’s driving your car?
What if your career choices were being made by the wrong part of yourself? In this essay, I share a powerful metaphor from my coach: picturing your inner voices as passengers in a car. By moving my…
buff.ly
October 16, 2025 at 11:51 AM
When you want to go in a certain direction, ask yourself: Which part of me has the wheel?
This isn’t practice and there are no do-overs
Halftime | Note to Self
A couple of weeks ago I turned 50 years old, which is a sentence my fingers feel strange typing because in my mind I’m still somewhere in my late 20s. Age...
buff.ly
October 9, 2025 at 11:51 AM
This isn’t practice and there are no do-overs
Thanks to @anildash.com I will never stop thinking about the fact that Mariah Carey recorded a song called Demented at the same time as Always Be My Baby
Mariah Carey Has a Secret, Rebellious Unreleased Album, Talks Here For It All (Extended)
Mariah Carey talks about the time she interrupted her son's Twitch livestream, her rebellious secret unreleased album Someone's Ugly Daughter and her latest album Here For It All.
The Tonight Show…
buff.ly
October 2, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Thanks to @anildash.com I will never stop thinking about the fact that Mariah Carey recorded a song called Demented at the same time as Always Be My Baby
"Completing tasks, no matter how inane, made me feel productive...never you mind the fact that most of those tasks have no real importance and frequently represent phony work."
Done Detoxing
There’s this period of transition between full time employment and being settled in your post-work existence known as detox.
buff.ly
October 1, 2025 at 11:18 PM
"Completing tasks, no matter how inane, made me feel productive...never you mind the fact that most of those tasks have no real importance and frequently represent phony work."
Asked @monteiro.bsky.social how he thinks about his creative practice, and he wrote about how life’s big and small, important and trivial, mundane and creative activities are all interconnected. Good answer.
How to fold socks
This is my art studio all packed up. It’s all in storage now. Still looking for a new place. 💰 Join the $2 Lunch Club! 💰 This week’s question comes to us...
buff.ly
September 18, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Asked @monteiro.bsky.social how he thinks about his creative practice, and he wrote about how life’s big and small, important and trivial, mundane and creative activities are all interconnected. Good answer.
Fellow KPop Demon Hunter fans: EJAE - singer-songwriter and voice of Rumi - wrote Golden on her way to the dentist
EJAE wrote Golden on her way to the dentist | Note to Self
Singer-songwriter EJAE recorded a couple of voice notes on her way to the dentist which became the mega-hit earworm Golden. EJAE was the voice of lead...
buff.ly
September 12, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Fellow KPop Demon Hunter fans: EJAE - singer-songwriter and voice of Rumi - wrote Golden on her way to the dentist
Experience is the best teacher
Experiential knowledge | Note to Self
Parenthood reminds me on a daily basis: there’s a big difference between intellectual and experiential knowledge. Lessons from a book or teacher pass...
buff.ly
September 10, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Experience is the best teacher
It's launch day! 💙 📓 🚀 This is my new blog, an actual ongoing note to myself about joy over productivity buff.ly/Yrt7tYo
Welcome to my blog | Note to Self
Hello world. This is my new blog. I’ve been writing it in private for awhile now, so I’m glad you’re here. Check out what it’s all about, then I hope...
notetoself.studio
September 9, 2025 at 3:36 PM
It's launch day! 💙 📓 🚀 This is my new blog, an actual ongoing note to myself about joy over productivity buff.ly/Yrt7tYo
Publishing today is all about self-publishing
Everything Kevin Kelly knows about self-publishing | Note to Self
Kevin Kelly’s excellent essay about publishing today is that it’s all about self-publishing. These points jumped out at me: The traditional approach to...
buff.ly
September 9, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Publishing today is all about self-publishing
At some point, the ability to check items off a todo-list stops moving you forward, and instead holds you back.
How to be unproductive | Note to Self
When your self-worth is linked to your productivity, you see every activity in your day as either valuable (productive) or not. I have this disease. At...
buff.ly
September 8, 2025 at 11:51 AM
At some point, the ability to check items off a todo-list stops moving you forward, and instead holds you back.
Issue 2 of the newsletter is out
⚡️ Not a bolt, but a whisper
Epiphanies are rarer than we think.
buttondown.com
September 3, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Issue 2 of the newsletter is out
Epiphanies are rarer than we think. When you ask a big question, the answer arrives not as a lightning bolt, but as a whisper.
A whisper or a notion
What did you figure out on sabbatical? What was the takeaway from the 10-day? When you give yourself time and space to ask big questions, you expect an...
notetoself.studio
September 2, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Epiphanies are rarer than we think. When you ask a big question, the answer arrives not as a lightning bolt, but as a whisper.
Po Bronson: "Confusing intensity and passion is a common mistake. Intensity is external; passion invokes something inside you. Passion is a call-and-response with your soul. It’s not just adrenaline."
Intensity versus passion
Confusing intensity and passion is a common mistake. Intensity is external; passion invokes something inside you. Passion is a call-and-response with...
notetoself.studio
September 1, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Po Bronson: "Confusing intensity and passion is a common mistake. Intensity is external; passion invokes something inside you. Passion is a call-and-response with your soul. It’s not just adrenaline."
All your ideas are downstream from what you take in. Garbage in, garbage out. You improve your output with higher-quality input.
Intentional inputs
Years ago I was at Disneyland in California with my family, taking a lunch break between rides. As I sipped my drink and watched the crowd passing by, I...
notetoself.studio
August 12, 2025 at 12:15 PM
All your ideas are downstream from what you take in. Garbage in, garbage out. You improve your output with higher-quality input.