Productivity

How many times each day do you try to work yourself up to tackle some undesirable task? If you’re like me – several times.

Here are some strategies that I've used:

1. Put yourself in jail. If you're working on something that's going to take a long time, and you have the urge to try to rush, or to feel impatient, pretend you're in jail. If you're in jail, you have all the time in the world. You have no reason to hurry, no reason to cut corners or to try to do too many things at once. You can slow down, concentrate. You can take the time to get every single detail right.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about time management and productivity lately, so I decided to check in with Gina Trapani, who is best known as the founder of the blog Lifehacker, and the author of the book “Upgrade Your Life,” an indispensable guide to how to work smarter in the digital age. When I last interviewed Trapani, she was still editing Lifehacker, which is owned by Gawker Media. She left that position in January. These days she divides her time between computer programming, writing for her personal blog, Smarterware, and freelance writing for a variety of publications.

We chatted via phone and email about going through transitions and forging a new path away from a brand you’ve been closely identified with. The following is a condensed version of our conversations.

So how does it feel to be just Gina Trapani after four years of being Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, one of the most powerful blogs in the world?

Lifehacker is this great brand, packaged really nicely and my name was tied very closely with it. Now that I’m not there, I’m not a brand anymore. Read More »

Today’s post comes out of desperation.

I spend my days toggling between computer windows. I start reading something, take a break to check email or Twitter, chase a link and open another window, telling myself I’ll get back to that first window later. I return to the item I was working on, many moments later, only to have completely lost my train of thought. At the end of the day, I close down the computer with some 20 or 30 windows open. If I’m using Firefox, my good fortune (or punishment) is that the next time I start up, those windows greet me anew, creating a virtual to-do list that I’m just as unlikely to get to as I was when I first opened each of them.

My multitasking is not confined to my laptop. While preparing my morning tea, I might be paying a bill and getting it ready for the mail, fixing the dog’s food and my own cereal, and trying to pay attention to the morning news. (After all, we should be able to do things while just “listening” since that’s we do while driving.)  As my fiance passes me on his way to the shower, I kiss him and half-heartedly engage in a “what are we doing tonight” exchange while still trying to listen to the news. I’m waiting for the day the dog’s kibble ends up in my cereal bowl.

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