How To Get Things Done: What I Do for Motivation and Productivity

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'll hang out with my friends.

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

a goal of getting into a foreign University,

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.

Really useful.

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