Gina Trapani, Lifehacker

Tech writer and coder. That’s the header on Gina Trapani’s website, and it strikes me as exceedingly humble for someone who was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009 and 2010.

Gina Trapani is the founding editor of Lifehacker, the popular blog on productivity in the digital age, which was nominated for Blog of the Decade and led to the bestselling book, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster Better

Even though things were going great at Lifehacker, Gina left after 4 years to find her next challenge. Currently, Gina is a Project Director at Expert Labs.org, where she’s leading development on ThinkTank, which is an open source crowdsourcing platform that the White House will use.

I could go on and on, but you’ll have to listen to the interview to hear what else Gina is up to. In our interview together, Gina and I discuss:

• Why Gina left Lifehacker, even though she loved her title, her staff, and her paycheck (and how she decided when was the right time to leave)
• Why it’s a good thing when a new job makes you uncomfortable and maybe even makes you cry
• How doing work for free can lead to work that pays
• Being a distracted email-overloaded fool, and how to trick yourself into being productive and get peace of mind.

Get all the details on Gina’s latest projects at www.ginatrapani.org.

Listen to my interview with Gina Trapani

0:07    Michael introduces Gina Trapani
1:08    Gina’s book The Complete Guide to Google Wave
3:31    Why Gina left Lifehacker, even though she loved her title, her staff, and her paycheck (and how she decided when was the right time to leave)
5:12    Why it’s a good thing when a new job makes you uncomfortable and maybe even makes you cry
10:36   How doing work for free can lead to work that pays
16:22   Being a distracted email-overloaded fool, and how to trick yourself into being productive and get peace of mind
20:27   How Gina stays focused on the work that makes the difference
23:53   How to find out more about Gina Trapani
24:45   Michael closes the interview with Gina Trapani

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