Hello guys, welcome to my channel.
I'm so happy to see you here.
Today we're going to talk about a very important thing.
I'm going to tell you my tips and tricks
of planning your time and achieving your goals
because you know
there's a feeling of procrastination
when you want to do so many things
but you don't know where to start
you kinda want to get into Stanford
but also you want to stay in your country.
You don't know what to do, you don't know where to start.
I've been there.
I had the same feeling.
I had the same problems
when two years ago
I was just about to
start my admission process to
the American Universities
but when I realised
I only had a year
when I had to pass TOEFL
when I had to pass GMAT
and fill in all the application forms
and make sure Universities provide financial assistance.
It seemed like a lot of tasks.
I decided to plan my time.
That year I realised that
time is the most powerful resource
and it's really limited
because sometimes you start your day
and think "I have the whole weekend
in front of me,
I'll watch TV series first
And I'm going to visit my parents
Only then I'm going do
some tasks that I've planned.
Then you end up
not doing anything at all
because you just spend your time
hanging out with your friends
which is not bad but if you have
you need to learn a language
that means you've done nothing for it.
The first thing I'd advise you to do
is to have a deadline.
When I started planning
admission process for foreign Universities
I had certain deadlines from
every single University
And I knew that I had
3 months to prepare for TOEFL,
pass GMAT
and fill in all the application forms
and I have just one month
to pass all the exams.
So I had the exact days
when I had to do what
and it really helped
planning everything
when you think I'm going to do it first
to see how it goes
and many people ask me
"Can I just pass TOEFL and how what my score is
and only then decide whether I should go to the American University
or British University
or not?"
This is a really bad strategy because
if you're just trying to see what the outcome would be
this would not really work
because you need to have a certain goal,
for example,
you need to score 100 on TOEFL
on August, 15,
for example.
This gives you the understanding
that time is limited.
As I said time is everything
So you need to start planning your time right now.
The second thing
is what you can do to plan your time.
I'm going to show you an app on my iPhone
You probably know it, it's called Google Calendar.
I'm not sure...
You can see it. Great
Google calendar is
where I plan everything.
I plan all the meetings there
it's really useful because if you
you're meeting a person who has Google calendar
You just send them an invite.
They'll get it in their calendar,
you'll never miss a meeting.
Sometimes I plan meetings
two months ahead
and it's really good if somebody has it in their calendar.
You won't forget it even in two months.
And the second thing you can do there.
They have goals, reminders, events.
Event is when you plan a meeting.
Reminder is a list of things you need to do during the day
or during the week.
The third thing has just appeared, it's called goals.
I really like it.
Goals is like filling application forms.
It will put a certain event which is applicable to your goal,
for example, filling the application forms
when there is a day you have minimum tasks,
for example, my goals will be during the weekend
and Google calendar asks what I did to achieve my goal.
This is really motivating
because sometimes you don't know when
you have time for achieving your goal.
and Google calendar reminds you that you have time on Saturday
and you like "yes, I have time on Saturday"
and I have to do it.
Please use Google Calendar.
The third thing I'm using...
By the way, you can enjoy the view
in the back while I'm searching for the program.
It's very beautiful sunset.
Very beautiful river
The program is called Trello
Here is the logo.
Trello helps you to plan your tasks.
What really works for me is
having two columns.
First column is called Marina.
Very selfish.
This column is for daily tasks.
I try to keep my tasks
to 5 a day.
If I go beyond five,
I will never do this task.
So five is the maximum.
I start my morning with column,
which is called Marina later.
In Marina later I have a lot of ideas
for business, for example, which is Linguatrip.com
study abroad platform
for example, I need to shoot this video
I need to write a text for the website.
I have so many ideas.
I just list them there
When the mourning starts
I have something I need to do
Every day like check my mail,
get back to people.
And then I have time to do things which I planned
I pick up a couple of tasks
and I start doing them
The trick here is
to have 5 things maximum,
otherwise you feel too overwhelmed
I had it when I had 10 tasks a day
It would never go away
because when you have 10 tasks
you don't know where to start.
This also applicable to your goals
like if you have 150 goals,
you will never know where to start,
where to begin.
You need to concentrate on one thing.
For you guys, I have like 6 thousand
subscribers on the channel.
And you probably want to get into a foreign university,
concentrate on it.
Try to dedicate at least one hour a day
to achieve it.
If you're not right there yet,
if your application is in a year or so,
you can dedicate some time on the weekend,
using Google.
Another useful advice.
This is one of the best advice I got
during an accelerator program 500 Startups
in a Silicon valley
If you subscribe to my channel, you've probably seen a video
with Poornima who interviewed us for that accelerator.
And she would tell me every day:
"Marina, one thing at a time".
Because when you're flooding with ideas
especially if you run your own business
or you want to apply into 500 different universities
you want to practice TOEFL speaking/reading and everything.
Golden rule is one thing at a time.
For me and the company,
don't go everywhere.
Don't try to work on conversion, emails to bookings, growing your traffic,
just concentrate on one thing first
and see how it goes.
When you're preparing for TOEFL,
don't try to do reading
and then speaking and then listening
and a couple of practice tests.
Concentrate on one thing at a time.
And this is what I did with my TOEFL.
Because I realised my speaking section
is so bad
because speaking in TOEFL is so weird.
I did 8 speaking sections in a row.
Started with the 1st one and ended with the 8th.
It was really practical.
When you concentrate on one thing
your brain adapts to the situation
and it starts to work in that particular direction.
So one thing at a time.
I think the last thing
I want to share with you
because I've shown you so many apps
not many, only 2 apps on my phone
Another app I'd really recommend
is Kindle
because when you have free time
and when you stuck in traffic
and you don't really have access to the Internet
don't start playing games
I know pokemon Go is a big try in a nose
I have it in my phone
but you know it's a time killer
And time is your most precious resource
you want to use your time in the best manner
The best thing you can do
in your free time
is read an interesting book.
Download a couple of books
for your Kindle
I'd recommend the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
This is the book I've recently read
I'll make a big review on it
because it made me throw away 6 big bags of rubbish
in my apartment
and something like How to get into Stanford
if you're applying for a university
so have these two books
and when you have free time
20 minutes a day
just read them.
You'd be amazed how
many books you'll be able to read
in a month
with just only 20 minutes a day.
Okay guys,
Thank you for watching this video.
I hope this was useful.
Please share your tips in the comments.
Tell me what you do to make most out of your time
and how you plan everything
during your day
I think it'll be really useful
for all of us.
And the last glimpse of Saint Petersburg.
Very beautiful today
Beautiful sunset
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel
And thank you so much