Jobs: Oleksiy Taranenko, editor-in-chief of Rozetka.ua

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Alexey Taranenko is the author of many articles on Lifehacker. At various times, he worked for major online publications in Ukraine. Now she is the chief editor of the largest Ukrainian online store Rozetka.ua. Alexey shared with us a story about his workplace, work and the role of sports in his life.

Occupation and that's it

The word "editor" can best describe my work. In the broadest sense. At the moment I am responsible for the content of the largest Ukrainian and one of the largest online store in the CIS. For all content, from product cards to a large YouTube channel with 600 thousand subscribers, which is only second in popularity among Russian speakers in terms of popularity.

This, of course, does not mean that I personally fill everything, we have a large team, only more than ten people are working on the channel. I make it all useful, informative and easy to read or look at. Therefore, the position is called “editor-in-chief,” although working with texts and editorial staff is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, one of the departments is a photo studio, where we take off clothes on models.

Earlier I could be called a journalist, I worked on a project about cars, and even earlier - on a popular Ukrainian website about the IT field -.

Workplace

I have two permanent jobs in the office. One in the editorial office, one in the photo studio, in some periods of time I spend more time on one, in others - on the second. One is always a mess, with which nothing can be done, on the other - a sterile order. In general, a mess at the workplace is an old habit of mine, rare attempts to maintain order do not lead to success, enough for a month at most. The workplaces are quite ordinary.

I've been trying to work less at home lately, leaving work at work. Therefore, flowers began to bloom in the home workplace.

But from time to time I like to sit somewhere outside the office with a cup of coffee. The environment of idle people and the din set me up surprisingly well on a productive wave. Especially if you need to work on texts, and not play ping-pong by email, when managerial functions begin to prevail over editorial ones.

Basically, where my MacBook Air is, that's where my workplace is.

Sometimes I use an external monitor, but mostly I do without it. Of the additional peripherals, only headphones, I abandoned the mouse a long time ago, as soon as I got the first MacBook Pro with a "glass" touchpad. Now I look at the mouse as an atavism.

The second working tool is the Samsung Note 4 smartphone, sometimes I write more letters on it during the day than on a laptop. Chose it for its large display, maximum performance and a great, really great camera. After I stopped writing about cars and a working SLR camera disappeared from my hands, my smartphone completely replaced my home camera. It even copes with shooting children indoors in the evening, the photos are quite decent for a home album, and sometimes for printing.

At home, there are no special solutions either: an Asus dual-band Wi-Fi router and that's all. In addition to Air, the home network also hosts the MacBook Pro, the wife's 2013 Nexus 7 tablet and the older daughter's Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. I don't use the tablet myself, I don't see the need for it.

What software are you using?

Recently, the range of software used has very much narrowed. If before I tried a bunch of everything, even at one time I wrote about software for Mac and iPhone for different sites, now the list has become very short.

mail

Gmail. As much as I disliked individual email clients before, and in particular Mail.app, in the end I came to the web interface anyway. This turned out to be the most convenient. And now almost everything lives in my browser. From the habit of reading mail all the time until he got rid of it completely. But I try not to be distracted by it and messengers during 25-minute working intervals.

Organization of work of the editorial office

Trello. Simple, but very convenient service for organizing team work. It does not at all look like similar systems, but this is rather a plus than a minus. In it we keep cards of articles and videos, keep track of deadlines and exchange comments. We have been using it for seven months, the flight is normal. Some features are missing, some of them are implemented in the paid version, but for now we can manage. If you have a need to organize the work of a group of people - take a closer look. It can also be used as a personal GTD service.

Personal GTD and time management

Notebook. So far, I have not found anything better than paper notes for myself. Several attempts to organize myself in some service or application were unsuccessful, I still return to the warm lamp notebook. The formats change: sometimes it's Moleskine, sometimes it's a large notebook of numerous gifts, sometimes it's a small one. But never a classic diary, although they gave me dozens of them. I don't even know why.

Nevertheless, some software helps me. This is a timer for the "tomato" technique Pomodoro One and Self Control, blocking social networks when willpower fails and procrastination reaches alarming proportions.

Messengers

Skype, Viber, Adium, FB-chat. It has not yet been possible to bring all subscribers into one service and is unlikely to succeed. Skype is more convenient for personal communication, the editorial staff communicates in it, there are several permanent group chats. Viber bribes as a replacement for SMS, I use it both on my laptop and on my smartphone. Adium is needed for the corporate Jabber of the entire company, and in FB-chat they mainly write about personal matters, but sometimes also about work, which has to be dealt with.

Office suite

Working with texts assumes a text editor. More and more I write in Google Docs myself (this text, for example), but I prefer to work with copyrighted texts in MS Office 365. The new beta version for Mac is almost excellent, I like it very much. For all the love of Apple software, iWork is not it. Especially the latest version, where some smart person wanted to remove all the tools in the right panel. Good luck with that. Documents are stored in Dropbox.

Other

Pixelmator's graphic editor covers all my photo editing needs, even when I was shooting cars for Autoua.net. Basically, all the work with photos took place in Adobe Lightroom. Yes, the combination of Lightroom and Photoshop is great, but at that time there was no subscription to it yet, and the price seemed to me unreasonably high for my tasks. Lightroom, on the other hand, is a great tool and must-have for a photographer.

Music and video are 99% online, for music I mainly use Yandex. Music and YouTube. But there is still a VLC video player for rare cases. There is no music on the disc at all.

I prefer to keep my desktop pristine, keeping only temporary things on it.

All used software is licensed, if on the old laptop I gradually got rid of the "pirates", but I'm not sure that I got rid of 100%, then with the new laptop everything is for sure. Music with the transfer of listening to online "pirate" also ceased, but with serials and films is still impossible, although I watch them and not so many.

Time organization

I don't follow any specific method. I read various books, I try to approach my working time consciously. I make strategic plans for three months ahead, as well as weekly and a list of tasks for the day. Mostly on paper, as I wrote above. There is no personal assistant, if the question is about it; in the work there are heads of departments who deal with their issues, a deputy in the editorial office. Delegation is a must, otherwise I will be stuck in small tasks and lose the big picture.

Daily regime

I usually get up at 5:30 if there is a workout on that day (and there are most of these days in the sports season), or at 7:00 if there is no workout and you just need to take my older daughter to school. Occasionally on Sunday I allow myself to sleep until 8: 30-9: 00, until the youngest wakes up. I usually go to bed at 23: 00-23: 30, before the birth of my youngest daughter I tried an hour earlier, now it doesn't work: while everyone settles down, I want to spend some time alone with my wife, without children. The most productive time is usually the first half of the day and a couple of hours before the end of the working day. Least productive before and after lunch.

Sport

Through the efforts of Slava Baransky, he began to run a little three years ago, before that he had not been involved in any sports. Then all this led me to triathlon, last year I made my first "half" Ironman 70.3 and several smaller starts: a half marathon, an Olympic triathlon distance, a 100 km bicycle race.

Now sport is a very important part of my life, training helps to reboot the brain, focus on tasks, and think over goals.

When you spend 3-4 hours on a bike at a time, there is more than enough time to think. This is not to say that sport in some way directly affects productivity or success in work, but indirectly - 100%. For example, long distances and training taught me how to complete even the most difficult and unpleasant tasks.

Training systems in cyclic sports are described in many places, I see no reason to repeat myself. I can recommend the books "Running with Lydyard" for completely newbies, "Triathlete's Bible" by Joe Friel. But in general, if we are talking about more or less serious training, then it is best to contact the coach. Fortunately, there are specialists with good recommendations in Russia and Ukraine, and even more so in the West. My bike training is headed by Yuri Ganusyak from the Athletes Testing Center, I recommend it in every possible way, swimming - by a trainer in a local pool, and running is still without a trainer.

The main thing in all this is to correctly draw up a training plan in accordance with the abilities and follow it. And, for heaven's sake, do not go to all these "challenges" in the spirit of Ironman in 100-200-300 days. Here, as nowhere else, the proverb “The quieter you go - the further you will be” is right.

How do you pass the time in traffic jams?

Fortunately, in Kiev the situation with traffic jams is not as critical as in Moscow, usually on the road I spend no more than an hour a day in total. I try to keep track of traffic, and if in the morning everything stops because of an accident, for example, then I go to the nearest cafe, work there, and then I drive to work on open roads. Fortunately, the schedule allows.

I use the time in the car to think about plans, reboot, relax after a working day and switch to "at home" mode. On the way to work, I think about my plans for the day. Sometimes I listen to podcasts. Any other waiting - in queues, airports, and so on - I use to read, mostly books, less often - deferred articles in Pocket. I read a lot, about 80% of fiction, 20% of non-fiction. I don't really like the numerous modern non-fiction, where the authors spread one main idea into 600 pages to make it look more solid. But great books come across from time to time. Of the latter, I liked Yandex. Book and Jony Ive - the legendary Apple designer.

Life hacking from Alexey Taranenko

Books

Since my work is somehow connected with the word, I strongly recommend Nora Gal's book "The Word Living and Dead". Any person writing is simply obliged to read it. On the same topic - “How to write well. The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction Writings by William Zinser. And if you consider yourself a journalist or plan to become one - "Craft" by Leonid Bershidsky.

From the fiction I would recommend, perhaps, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, but not a story, but a full-fledged novel.

Podcasts

Podcasts in my life happen in influx, so I would only recommend English as a Second Language Podcast. A good podcast for English learners, suitable for both beginners and intermediate learners.

Also, I can't help but recommend Steve Jobs's speech to Stanford students, which has probably already sickened everyone. No kidding, from time to time I wake up in the morning and ask myself: "If today was the last day in my life, would I do what I plan for today?" It helps a lot to choose the right goals and objectives, try it.

And for those interested in the profession of a journalist, finally, I would recommend the Newsroom television series. About how difficult everything is with journalism, not only in our realities, but also in the United States. There are 25 episodes in total, and each is worth the time spent on it.

Dream configuration

It seems to me that no configuration is important. The main productivity in my case is in my head, and the conditions and tools simply should not interfere with normal work. The laptop should not slow down and freeze when there is inspiration, the camera should not lose pictures, and so on. By and large, I don't care what and where to work, as long as the keyboard is comfortable. But I want a separate office at home, so far only in the plans.

Finally, I will tell you a story from my life almost ten years ago. At that time, I worked for a telecom company, where I sold telephony and Internet services to small and medium-sized businesses. I was fond of mobile phones and smartphones, eagerly reading all the available publications about mobile communications, from time to time catching myself thinking that I understand the topic better than some authors. But I never thought about trying to write myself. Until this thought was incited by his wife, prompting him to look for vacancies. And within a week or two, I was sitting in front of the editor-in-chief of the best gadget magazine in the country, who looked in bewilderment at a guy who had never written anything but school essays. And two months later, I was a staff writer for this magazine, and for ten years now I have been writing for various print and online publications, although recently I have been more and more supervising other authors.

Do not be afraid to try, without it nothing will work. Even if there is only one chance in a thousand, it is more than nothing.