Mike Abasov

If you were following any of my advices, you are probably struggling with finding time for everything like I do. I’ve never been so busy in my life, but, as time goes by, I find new ways to make the most out of every hour and not burn out. It gets easier with practice.

Here are a few things you can do to find time for everything and make your time constraint less binding.

Utilize

Look back at your days. You might find that you’re not utilizing a huge junk of time. You spend 2 hour a day commuting while doing nothing but mind wondering? You stay in lines for 10 minutes feeling bored? You wash your frying pan many times every day?

No wonder you feel like there is not enough time for anything! Try this.

Audiobooks for your commute time
I’ve been listening to one business book a week while driving for the last 3 weeks, and it’s an amazing time-saver! Try them at Audible and get a membership, if you find them awesome.

Multitask
Audiobooks is the first steps to multitasking. I also manage to check-in on Foursquare, while waiting for my tall no-whip mocha, or check email, if the line gets lengthy. How can you make the most of your wait time?

Group tasks
This one is about frying pans, for example. The problem with cooking every day is that you need to clean after yourself, heat the pan, etc. every day. Try cooking for a few days ahead in one session. This is also a great way to cut on sandwiches and chinese (nom-nom-nom!).

Utilizing sleep time is bull shit
Sleep is very important. It helps you learn and increases your productivity. You might want to cut on sleep to fit in more (I’m guilty of that), but it only results in low creativity. And low creativity stops you from finding easy and fast solutions (Rework). 

Speed up

You can do a lot of thing much faster.

Say showering. I got this advice from Men’s Health, and it really makes sense to spend under 10 (or even 5) minutes showering.

Or speed reading. As a student you are going to read a lot over a long period of your life. Why not learn to read fast? Try apps like EyeQ.

What else? You can do almost anything faster. For example, if you’re a blogger, check out these articles: “How to Write a Great Blog Post in Just 15 Minutes” or “HOW TO WRITE THREE BLOG POSTS A DAY.”

Hack It

You can be more productive by changing the way you do things, perceive them, or by using some tools. Research how other people make most out of their time. My favourite places are Lifehacker for recipes and Appstorm for apps.

Even such an incompetent source as myself can show you something cool, right? (Smile, you’re on camera ;-).

Classic Time Management

Use a calendar
I prefer iCal (Mac OS), but Google Calendar is pretty good too. Log everything to your calendar: birthdays, classes, regular workout times, etc. I believe that a perfect calendar has no empty spots.

Also, and this is a good one, set up automatic import of your events from websites like Facebook or Meetup.com. This is the most awesome thing that has ever happened to calendars. Ever!

I also use wall calendars to separate some specific categories of activities, like blogging.

To-Do lists
Gotta love them. I use Things (Mac OS, iPad, iPhone), combined with iCal and Highrise for my to-dos. I separate tasks by activities, such as “School” or “Shopping,” and by projects, such as “HootSuite Internationalization” or “Commerce 295.” 

The main reason to use these lists is pure simple—you forget less. The runner-up reason is also about memory. When you backup your memory in such a way, you can concentrate your thoughts on more important issues and be more efficient. 

That’s it

Sorry for taking so much of your time. But look, if you were reading this post at 1,000 words per minute, while on a bus taking a break from listening to “Crush It!”… you get the point!

How do you fit everything you need to do in you tight schedule? And, on another note, am I crazy?

Always have an opinion. Ask yourself what your gut feeling is saying, what you think about this and that, if it is good or bad. Then analyze. Then answer.

Don’t brag about your decision just yet, because you might be wrong, and you don’t want to show that to everyone. But reevaluate and review your opinion later, when more information becomes available.

Some times, you will be completely wrong. Some times, you will be right. But what is more important is that through this process you will train yourself, learn and improve your cognitive skills, as well as intuition.

Later, when you get experience, more knowledge, and access to inside information, your judgements will improve dramatically. And this is crucial for any of your decisions.

So is Blackberry Playbook going to kill Apple iPad? What do you think?

I finished reading “Ideavirus” by Seth Godin about 2 months ago, but never had a chance to review it. So here we go.

The book is great from a theoretical standpoint. It really says a lot about how viral messages spread and how the marketing perception should switch from selling products to selling ideas. A large part of the text though, I found to be common sense, but some things were new and interesting to read.

The book is old; some examples feature such brands as ICQ, for instance. But what made reading twice as awesome, was buying the Vook edition for iPad. It has a lot of cool videos recorded just now, so you can see how the same principles work again and again.

Final thoughts: read it.

*Both links to the books in this post are affiliate. I decided to play around with Amazon. However, monetization is NOT the purpose of this blog at all. I am truly sorry, if you feel in any way offended by this move. I do mean every single word I write here.*

Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Crush It!” is simply awesome. Just as many other people, I found out about Gary by watching his presentation on TED’s website. From the first moments, I knew that this guy appeals a lot to what I believe in, especially, when he was talking about “donating to Haiti for retweets” trend, which I hate with every bit of my soul.

Gary’s doesn’t sell a dream of doing nothing and being reach, which many bloggers try to sell. He talks about working very hard and loving your job in order to succeed. This is exactly the kind of philosophy I follow.

So, after getting my iPad, I went to Amazon and bought a copy of Gary’s book. (By the way, it cost $2 less on Amazon than on iBooks). I read in in two days from cover to cover, and it’s just extraordinary. Fact is, this is a book I will remember and, maybe, the one that will change my life in the same Alina Wheeler’s “Designing Brand Identity” did three years ago.

Have you read it? What do you think?

I’m writing this from my new iPad. I wanted if for a long time, and now I have it. But that’s not what this post is about.

I think that the future is in my hands right now. It has never been easier and more natural to surf the web. The experience of reading books, watching videos, consuming content, making notes is truly amazing on this device. Let’s take a look at the example I love using:

A textbook on advertising can now store not only high quality prints, but also video ads, showcases, presentations. Any definition or reference can now be clickable, and we are able to get the maximum from the book while making minimum efforts ever.

I believe that iPad is not [only] a toy. It is an absolutely awesome tool that can be used and utilized in millions of ways. So, if you were considering buying it, do it! I don’t think that you’ll regret this purchase.