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Monthly Favourites #6 - Ali Abdaal

2018-08-30 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 15:03 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: YouTube, writing online and creators, Books and reading) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Sponsor segment present, His own numbers

In his sixth Monthly Favourites video, sponsored by Rosetta Stone, junior doctor Ali recommends the language app he uses to brush up his Japanese, Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive as an audiobook, travel vlogger Sam Kolder for learning video editing, and wireless earphones as an investment that cuts the friction of listening to podcasts and audiobooks.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The four favourites of the month: a language app, a fantasy series, a YouTuber and wireless earphones

  • ★★ In the sixth instalment of his Monthly Favourites series, Ali, now a junior doctor in Cambridge, talks about things he discovered in August 2018 and found interesting. — 00:00:00
  • ★ The language-learning app Rosetta Stone sponsors the video; Ali has been using it for a few weeks to brush up his Japanese. — 00:00:22

00:00:51 — Rosetta Stone, the sponsor, and how it teaches a language

  • ★★ Ali likes three things about Rosetta Stone, his sponsor: its lessons feel like a game, with rings to fill that kept him redoing lessons as in spaced repetition; it immerses you in whole sentences from early on, so you build the grammar in your own head the way people learn their native tongue; and it makes you speak, scoring your pronunciation. — 00:03:21 · spaced repetition
  • ★★ Ali plans to keep using Rosetta Stone for the next year or so and might later make a video on how his Japanese has improved. (hedged) — 00:04:48

00:05:03 — The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

  • ★★ After Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, Ali read Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, finishing the second as an Audible audiobook. — 00:05:03 · Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson, Audible
  • ★★★ The audiobook of The Way of Kings, the first book of The Stormlight Archive, took Ali an hour or two to get into; now he is completely addicted and listens to it skateboarding to work or driving. — 00:05:34
  • ★ Ali looks forward to his two-and-a-half-hour drive to Birmingham the next day (31 August 2018) as time to listen to The Way of Kings. — 00:05:34
  • ★★ Ali resists buying The Way of Kings on Kindle to read it quickly, because he wants to savour the audiobook experience for as long as possible. — 00:06:03
  • ★★★ Ali suggests starting Brandon Sanderson with Mistborn, which is very readable, since The Stormlight Archive is denser and, like Game of Thrones, introduces many characters. — 00:06:03 · Mistborn, Game of Thrones, Brandon Sanderson
  • ★★ Ali might start a book review series on his channel about The Stormlight Archive and the other fantasy books he has read, and asks viewers to say in the comments if they would be interested. (hedged) — 00:06:33

00:06:53 — Sam Kolder, the travel vlogger whose editing teaches him

  • ★★ Ali sees Sam Kolder as the gold standard of travel vloggers: he posts maybe once a month, but the editing of every video is insane. — 00:06:55
  • ★★ Ali says he almost never watches YouTube videos just to be entertained; he thinks about what he can gain from each one. — 00:07:24
  • ★★ Working a full-time job leaves Ali little time in the evenings, so he prefers YouTube videos that entertain and teach him at once. — 00:07:53
  • ★★★ Asked which YouTube channels he learns from, Ali names Sam Kolder: his videos teach Ali a lot about video editing, and he rewatches some, such as My Year 2016 and the Gymshark video, for their techniques. — 00:07:53 · Gymshark
  • ★★ When he plans vlogs, Ali borrows sequences from Sam Kolder's videos; taking inspiration from other YouTubers' techniques and applying them to your own work is not copying, he says. — 00:08:24
  • ★★ Ali has been editing videos for a year and has made about 150; he does not think he is that good at it compared with editors like Sam Kolder. — 00:08:52
  • ★★★ Video editing improves as you keep doing it, Ali says, and watching others for inspiration subconsciously makes you better at editing or whatever you do, because you put their ideas into practice. — 00:08:52
  • ★★ Ali has decided that one of his projects for the next few months is to buy a crash mat from Amazon and learn to do a backflip, like a slow-motion backflip off a cliff in Vietnam. — 00:08:52 · Amazon
  • ★★ Because viewers seemed to like his iPad videos, Ali wants to bring tech-themed videos to his channel more often. — 00:09:40 · iPad

00:09:52 — Wireless earphones: Powerbeats3 and AirPods

  • ★★ Ali wears his Powerbeats3 earphones, which pair automatically with the iPhone, at the gym and on his commute; however he shakes his head, they do not fall off. — 00:10:05 · iPhone
  • ★★ Ali, who prefers the AirPods he used for a year, lost them at a wedding in Manchester a few weeks earlier; his Powerbeats3 came free with a new MacBook Pro through the education discount. — 00:10:35 · AirPods, MacBook
  • ★★★ Ali, who has used wireless earphones for about two years, says they changed his life: they are a much nicer experience than wired ones, and once you go wireless you cannot go back. — 00:11:01
  • ★★ Wireless earphones range from cheap £20 pairs on Amazon to £150 AirPods; Ali thinks the Powerbeats3 cost about £120 but come free with the education discount. (hedged) — 00:11:53 · Amazon, AirPods
  • ★★★ Ali recommends wireless earphones because they lower the barrier to entry, reducing the friction of listening to things on your phone. — 00:12:22 · friction
  • ★★★ Ali, who listens almost only to podcasts and audiobooks, counts wireless earphones as an investment: if they add an extra hour of listening a week, that hour compounds over time and adds value to his life. — 00:12:22
  • ★★ Ali has got a lot of value from podcasts such as Matt D'Avella's The Ground Up Show, The Tim Ferriss Show and, for those into making software, the Indie Hackers podcast. — 00:12:22 · Matt D'Avella, The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ For anyone with an iPhone and the budget, Ali's pick among wireless earphones is the AirPods, because their link with the iPhone is incredibly convenient. — 00:12:51 · AirPods, iPhone
  • ★★ Ali will try to make the Monthly Favourites videos more consistently, because people seem to enjoy them. — 00:13:18

00:13:25 — The future of the series and his weekly email newsletter

  • ★★ Much of the value people get from things comes from compounding over time, Ali says: The Tim Ferriss Show, one of his favourite podcasts, is no new discovery, as he has listened to it for years. — 00:13:41 · The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ Ali might move Monthly Favourites away from things newly discovered that month towards things he enjoys in general, perhaps with a monthly theme. (hedged) — 00:13:41
  • ★★ For almost five months Ali has sent his weekly email newsletter every Sunday without fail, with a snippet of life advice or something he learned that week and links to interesting things. — 00:14:21 · aliabdaal.com

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: AirPods · Powerbeats3 · Rosetta Stone · Sam Kolder · The Stormlight Archive · The Way of Kings

Also: People: Brandon Sanderson · Matt D'Avella · Patrick Rothfuss

Projects: aliabdaal.com

Works: Game of Thrones · Indie Hackers podcast · Mistborn · The Ground Up Show · The Name of the Wind · The Tim Ferriss Show · The Wise Man's Fear

Organizations: Amazon · Gymshark

Concepts: friction

Places: Birmingham · Manchester · Vietnam

Products: Audible · iPad · iPhone · MacBook

Also centred on The Stormlight Archive: My Favourite Fantasy Books

Also centred on The Way of Kings: My Favourite Fantasy Books

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