Ali Abdaal Ltd

I explore evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us be more productive, and build a life that we love.

YouTuber

6med

We're a team of medical students from some of the UK's top universities, who run one-day preparation courses for medical school entrance exams and interviews.

Founder

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

(1) Psychiatry, (2) Obstetrics & Gynaecology, (3) Stroke Medicine

Doctor - Foundation Year 2

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

(1) Cardiology, (2) Geriatrics, (3) General Surgery

Doctor - Foundation Year 1

Kumon

Teaching assistant, helping students aged 5-18 with Maths and English. Specialised in coaching advanced students.

Teaching Assistant

I’m Ali, a YouTuber, podcaster, soon-to-be author and ex-Doctor working in London, UK.

I make videos that explore the strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives. I also have a weekly podcast called Deep Dive and I write a weekly email newsletter that contains some quick thoughts + links to interesting things.

I studied Medicine for 6 years at Cambridge University, and graduated in 2018. On my YouTube channel (4.5 million subscribers) I make videos about medicine, tech and productivity. 

✍️ Visit my website and blog: https://aliabdaal.com/
💌 Subscribe to Sunday Snippets: https://aliabdaal.com/li/
🎬 Check out my YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sepharoth64
🎙 Listen to the Deep Dive podcast: https://aliabdaal.com/deep-dive-links
🎙 Listen to the Not Overthinking podcast: https://notoverthinking.com/
🚀 Learn more about my Part-Time YouTuber Academy: academy.aliabdaal.com

I used to make the mistake of thinking that I could fit everything into my life. Work, hobbies, fitness, friends, family, a side-hustle, chores AND time to rest and recover. But the truth is that we DON’T have time for everything. And that’s okay 👇

There’s a pretty common metaphor used to describe how you should prioritise your life, and it goes like this. Imagine your life is an empty glass. The things you consider to be the foundations of your life - your family, your job, maybe an important hobby - are big stones, which you put into the glass before anything else.

And all the other aspects of your life - friends, fitness, a side hustle - are the small stones. They fit in between the gaps of the big rocks. In theory, this means that you put the most time and effort into those big foundation rocks, and anything else left over can find room at the edges.

But you’ve probably already noticed a problem with this way of thinking, which was pointed out to me by Oliver Burkeman, the author of the amazing book, “4000 Weeks”. It’s highly likely that all of these different elements of your life are all equally important. Your fitness is fundamental. Your job is fundamental. Your friends are fundamental. They are all part of living a fulfilling life. 

But, your glass stays the same size. You don’t get any more time, just because you have lots of important things to be spending it on. Which means that we have to accept some limits.

Sometimes, we don’t have time for fitness if we’re choosing to be with our families instead, or we don’t have time for our friends, if we’re working really hard on a project. And it can be painful to acknowledge this, because we want to be able to do everything, and commit to everyone.

So, how do we actually prioritise the things that are important to us right now? One method is to think about adventures and quests. A daily adventure is the one single thing you want to achieve within the day. Perhaps you’re prioritising launching your business, and you want to set up a storefront today. That’s your daily adventure. 

A side quest might be something smaller, like spending time cooking a healthy meal. Thinking like this means you still make progress towards the goals that matter to you, without feeling like every second in your day is being used up. By accepting that we all have limitations, and we can’t do everything, we can choose what’s most important in the moment and keep moving forward.

You can conduct a weekly review after your daily adventures and side quests. This is just 20 minutes which you set aside on a Sunday to go over what you’ve achieved this week, and what you didn’t get around to. This way, you can then re-prioritise for the week ahead, and decide what to give your time to.
Staying sustainably productive is tough. 

This is why I started Productivity Lab, a new community designed to help you achieve your goals, and feel good along the way. You can find out more here:

https://lnkd.in/e6Sqe6Ni

Ali Abdaal

This story transformed my approach to productivity 🤔

It’s about regret, success, and near-death experiences, and it inspired me to make the most of every minute.

Matthew Dicks is a world-renowned storyteller, teacher, and author. But life hasn’t always looked like this for him. As a young man, he survived an awful near-death experience, which changed him forever.

Matthew was 22 and working as a manager at a McDonald’s when the store was robbed. He and his staff were held at gunpoint while the robbers demanded that he open the safe. Having already thrown away the key, this was impossible. In those terrible moments, Matthew genuinely believed that he was going to die. 

But, he wasn’t scared. Instead, all he felt was regret. He hadn’t achieved any of the things he wanted to in life. His dreams of being a writer had never been fulfilled, and he felt that his life had been a terrible waste.

Matthew survived this terrible ordeal. And even though it was incredibly traumatic, he sees it as a turning point in his life. In a way, it drove him to success. He completed two degrees while working full-time and built a career as a novelist and a teacher. He could do this because of one of his key philosophies: 

⏳ 10 minutes is precious...

10 minutes before a meeting is precious.

10 minutes in a waiting room is precious.

Novels aren’t written with smooth jazz and smooth coffee.

They’re written in the gaps of life. 

Once, Matthew was meeting a woman to chat about her novel. She was about ten minutes late, and he had used the time to write a new paragraph in his own story. When the woman arrived, she asked him lots of questions about finding an agent and the publishing industry. Matthew asked her how much of the novel she’d written.

None, she said. She hadn’t started. She hadn’t found the time, and she wanted empty blocks of time in which to write. Matthew turned his computer around to show her the paragraph he’d written while he was waiting for her to arrive. 

When you know what it feels like to face death filled with regret, then you understand that there really is no time to waste.

I find Matthew’s story inspiring because it shows that productivity isn’t a gimmick, or just a means to make more money. It helps us live a life we’re proud of, achieve the things that matter to us, and make an impact in the way we want.

In fact, Matthew has inspired me so much that I’ve made a video about him, sharing 7 actionable steps you can take to achieve more in life 👇
https://lnkd.in/eKeCi52T

I’d also really recommend Matthew’s two nonfiction books about writing and productivity: Storyworthy (https://geni.us/mNwGxv4) and Someday Is Today (https://geni.us/45yDzy).

Discipline is overrated 👀

Here's a snippet of my episode on the Secret Leaders podcast with Dan Murray-Serter, where I share my practical tips and strategies for being more productive by simply making work feel like play. 

🤔 How do you approach productivity without just relying on motivation and discipline?

Watch the full clip on YouTube 👇
https://lnkd.in/eeCJJaJe

In my first year of medical school, I really struggled. I’d procrastinate all the time, had to pull all-nighters to get assignments in, and wasn’t motivated to study. 

But towards the end of that year, I discovered a simple method that transformed my motivation, discipline and results, and made me a much better (and happier) student 👉 Accountability Buddies

Accountability buddies are people who help us stay on track. They could be friends, family, colleagues, or even strangers on the Internet who check in with us to make sure that we’re actually doing the things that we’re committed to.

If you’ve promised to work out three times a week, your buddy will text you to make sure you stick to your word. If you want to spend an hour writing every day, maybe you’ll jump on a zoom call with a friend so that you can work together. Perhaps you need a friend knocking at your door at 7AM to actually make you go for a run. 

Humans are social creatures. We don’t like disappointing others, and we’re more likely to follow through if we know another person is keeping tabs on us. A bit of gentle peer pressure can work wonders.
 
But the key word here is ‘gentle’. You don’t want a buddy who’s going to bully you, or annoy you into productivity. Instead, the best buddies, in my experience, meet five key criteria, which you can find in the picture below 👇 

Like any relationship, you can end things if they’re not working. But try reaching out to an accountability buddy if you’re struggling to actually make the changes you want in your life. 

From years 2-6 of medical school, I always studied with friends. I couldn’t motivate myself when I was in my bedroom alone, but I was always motivated when I was in the library working with others.That’s the power of accountability buddies - they help your work feel good, which makes you more productive, and more importantly, generally have a happier life. 

Record, reflect, refine, respond 🔄

These are the four principles of bullet journalling. Here’s how I use them to gain clarity in my daily life.

You’ve probably heard of bullet journaling. It’s all over the internet, with lots of influencers, study tubers, and productivity bros sharing their beautifully designed notebook pages.

People love having aesthetically pleasing notebooks that are perfectly colour-coded with handwritten titles and illustrations. But the principles behind bullet journaling are way simpler. 

📝 All you need is a plain notebook and a pen.

At its core, bullet journaling is a method for organising your thoughts. It was designed by a guy called Ryder Carroll. Ryder has ADD and was looking for a productivity system that would work for him. 

I actually did a great interview with him on my podcast if you’re interested - https://lnkd.in/g9sqQd8K

Here’s the basic principle: instead of having multiple different notebooks and apps for all the different elements of your life, you keep track of everything in one place - the bullet journal. 

This involves writing down your tasks, events, and notes. Tasks are just things on your to-do list. Events are things you’d usually put in your calendar - and this includes everything, from work meetings to coffee dates. And, finally, you include notes. These are ideas, thoughts, feelings, things, and moments you don’t want to forget.

Then, you use symbols to sort your notes. Perhaps your to-do notes have a star next to them. Maybe events have clock faces, and notes have a small heart. This means that you can go back through and collate your thoughts when you get to the end of your week or month.

Instead of having to flip between lots of different documents and files, you can write down your ideas as they come and sort them later. There are 3 reasons why this is effective.

1️⃣ It’s super useful to get all of your thoughts onto paper. Instead of having them swirling around your head, causing stress, worry, and confusion, writing them down gives you clarity and makes everything seem more manageable.

2️⃣ Going back through your notes allows you to refine, reflect, and respond. Maybe you’ve noticed a great idea in your notebook's margins, which you’d forgotten about. When you come to sort through your notes, you can really think about that idea and see if it leads you anywhere interesting.

3️⃣ Are you feeling burned out or anxious? Keeping a log of your feelings allows you to reflect on them over time and to see if there are any causes or changes you can make to improve things.

Thinking like this improves your problem-solving skills. Giving your brain some distance from the problem before returning to it means you’re less likely to make impulsive or rash decisions.

I’m a big fan of the bullet journal method, especially when my life is really hectic. It’s a simple productivity tool that can have a big impact.

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