How professionals work. Mikhail Sokolov, CEO OneTwoTrip

The heading "How Professionals Work" continues to acquaint the readers of "Megamind" with the working habits of various specialists in the IT market.

Mikhail Sokolov is the CEO of the OneTwoTrip Travel Angecy LLP group of companies, or simply OneTwoTrip .

Mikhail joined the company in August 2013 as a managing director, but very soon, in September 2014, he began to act as the operations director responsible for business processes and development.
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Actually, before the change of the vector in a tourist startup, Mikhail worked for 7 years in investment banks in Moscow and London, including Deutsche Bank and Barclays, having passed a career path from analyst to director, managed to participate in more than 20 successful transactions, from IPO to M & A .

Mikhail did not abandon the investment even after the end of his banking career, he is quite an active angel investor (early stages), providing financial and expert support to young companies. Michael is focused on finding projects for investment in retail, e-commerce and, directly, information technology (in which the last word is more important than the first).

Mikhail - a graduate of the MEO GUU them. Ordzhonikidze (Honors) and the New York Columbia Business School. In his free time, Mikhail travels and plays sports: tennis, swimming and windsurfing.

Current Location:
Moscow

Current place of work:
CEO of OneTwoTrip

One word that best describes how you work:
Intensely

How many hours a day do you work?
On weekdays 14-18 hours. Colleagues and partners are in different time zones, so after the morning parsing of mail and messages and the main part of the working day in the office from 10:00 to 22:00, I usually start a “prolonged”, but from home. On Saturday I try not to work and do digital detox. I can not say that I have succeeded greatly in this, but certainly I work less on weekends. We often get together with colleagues on Sunday in the office for half a day - to work on strategic tasks in a calm and quiet environment.

Current mobile device:
There are two: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

Current computer:
Macbook Pro 13 "

Without any applications, programs, utilities you can not live?
OneTwoTrip - it is very convenient to have all hotel and ticket bookings in dates in one place, and not to look for them in different places. I travel a lot, so for me this is true.

Messengers, including Telegram, mail, of course, Slack, taxi services, geo-services and maps, various media and business intelligence applications. Without anything else, somehow I will live.

Which life hack helps you save time?
Turn off notifications and pushes from all devices or at least remove the sound. Applications social networks clean away on 2/3 screen.

Do not confirm meetings and calls until you understand their meaning - there is no clear agenda or you have a suspicion that people are not prepared or will not say anything new. Replace meetings for a 5-minute telephone conversation to make sure that they will be talking about something new and will not be repeated.

And planning is very important: goals for the month, goals for the week, goals for the day.

What kind of to-do manager do you use?
Google Calendar and your own personal notes.

What do you listen when you work?
I do not work with music and there is no pole. Other specialization.

What are you reading now?
"How to fly a Horse" - Kevin Ashton

Which book from the last read was remembered the most?
“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman (“Think slowly ... Decide quickly,” Daniel Kahneman)

Do you use e-readers or prefer paper books?
I prefer paper ones, even on trips I find a place for them.

How long do you sleep?
5-8 hours, on weekends, it can be both 9 and 11. On working days, I sometimes sleep in the office during the day for 30 minutes, or even an hour, if the period is extremely intense.

Are you an owl or a lark?
I can not be attributed to the explicit type.

How do you have breakfast?
Differently. I rarely drink coffee in principle, and I do not practice at all during the day and in the evening.
I love water, tea, kefir, cheese cakes, cereal, granola, berries.

But in fact, as it should, sometimes it's just something on the go.

How do you spend your time on the way to work / from work?
Music, sometimes calls. Sometimes, I go in silence to think about something, but only in good weather. In the dark and dirt, as it happens in winter, it is better not to think about anything.

What advice you have ever been given can you convey to others?
If someone has angered you, strained or vybesil, do not respond immediately, but write your answer and re-read it in an hour or two, and then send it. And we must remember that we greatly exaggerate the significance of events occurring at work, as a rule, after a short time, no one considers many of these significant events as such.