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My PRODUCTIVE Apartment Tour (2021)

2020-11-22 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 20:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Relationships and personal life (also: Tools, apps and tech, Health, sleep and habits) · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: Sponsor segment present, Family, His medical past

Ali tours his two-bedroom flat room by room, from his box-room bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen to the living room that is his filming studio, showing his sleep and coffee routines, plants named after Harry Potter characters, his instruments and his desk gear, and promises a separate desk-setup video.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Hallway, the tech cupboard and the storage cupboard

  • ★★ Ali gives a tour of his whole flat, room by room. — 00:00:02
  • ★ Ali keeps a laptop in his tech cupboard on a wired connection so that he can upload files to his editor via Google Drive. — 00:00:39 · Google Drive
  • ★★ Ali has the smallest bedroom, the box room, of the two-bedroom flat, because, he jokes, he is such a gentleman. (playful) — 00:01:01

00:01:15 — His bedroom: shelving, clothes, books, bed, bedside table, Dyson fan and posters

  • ★★ The only underwear Ali uses is Uniqlo AIRism, which he calls literally the best; he has about 30 pairs of it. — 00:01:48
  • ★★ Ali reads absolutely everything on Kindle; he buys a physical copy only when a book looks pretty or he wants to show it off in videos. — 00:02:27 · Kindle
  • ★★ At night Ali clips blue-light-blocking glasses onto his glasses to block out blue light, which apparently helps him sleep. (hedged) — 00:02:59
  • ★★ Ali keeps an analogue clock by his bed because he does not believe in taking his phone to bed; when he wakes in the night he presses its button to see the time. — 00:03:31
  • ★★ By his bed Ali keeps his Kindle Oasis, the journal in which he sometimes writes, and Derren Brown's A Little Happier, notes on how to be happier in life. — 00:03:31 · Kindle, Derren Brown
  • ★★ Ali has run his Dyson fan every night for the last two years: it has a remote, looks reasonably aesthetic and is much nicer than a generic fan. — 00:03:57

00:04:39 — Bathroom: smart scales, face towels and the waterproof shower notebook

  • ★★ Ali weighs himself on smart scales every morning before his shower, and recently saw he has put on about six kilograms in the last three months of lockdown. — 00:04:39
  • ★ Ali has recently started using separate face towels, having heard that you should not wipe your face with the towel you use for the rest of your body. — 00:04:39
  • ★★ Ali keeps a notebook, said to be waterproof, in the shower so that he can write down ideas he gets there; he has used it once. — 00:05:08
  • ★★ Ali gave the flat's master bedroom to his housemate Sheen (as heard), to the chagrin of his grandmother, who always asks why he gave the girl the big room. — 00:05:46 · Ali Abdaal's grandmother

00:05:52 — The housemate's master bedroom, the closet with the Hoi An leather jacket, the en suite

  • ★★ Ali calls the leather jacket he had tailored in Hoi An, Vietnam, in 2017 stupid, and puts it on to ask viewers what they think. — 00:06:57

00:08:04 — Kitchen: the teapot from Japan, the coffee kettle and Chemex, the pull-up bar

  • ★★ Ali almost never uses the cast-iron teapot he bought in Japan, so his mother, who said he would never use it, was right. — 00:08:04 · Ali Abdaal's mother, Japan
  • ★★ Every morning Ali makes coffee with a Chemex, a filter and a temperature-controlled pouring kettle that James Hoffmann sent him. — 00:08:04
  • ★★ Working from home in lockdown, Ali has put a pull-up bar in the kitchen and does pull-ups as he walks through, though not very often because it makes his body hurt. — 00:09:09 · Gymshark
  • ★★ Ali calls the living room the pride and joy of the flat: it is the studio where all his videos are filmed. — 00:09:09

00:09:37 — Living room studio: TV, Apple TV, PlayStation, streaming gear and board games

  • ★ Ali's board games include Lord of the Rings, an Exit game, Pandemic, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Codenames and Hanabi. — 00:10:14

00:10:45 — Balcony, degrees on the wall, the IKEA sofa and the Displate posters of places he lived

  • ★★ Ali's sofa is the cheapest IKEA sells and really uncomfortable, but after two years he cannot be bothered to change it. — 00:11:40
  • ★★ Ali's three Displate posters in the studio are metallic with a matte finish, so that they hopefully do not reflect the studio lights much. (hedged) — 00:12:02
  • ★★★ Ali lived for about five years in Lesotho, the country surrounded by South Africa. — 00:12:02
  • ★★ Ali spent a summer in Japan in his second year of medical school doing a research project. — 00:12:02 · Japan

00:12:44 — Plants named after Harry Potter characters, guitars, cajon, keyboard and singing practice

  • ★★ Ali names his plants after Harry Potter characters, such as Ron, Ginny, Neville and Dean; his Tesla is called Hermione and his wireless headphones Luna, because naming things makes him feel good. — 00:12:44 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★ Ali's main, full-size guitar is the one he first bought in about 2016 and has used ever since. (hedged) — 00:13:11
  • ★★ Ali calls Articulate his favourite board game of all time. — 00:13:11
  • ★★ Ali's small wall-mounted guitar is electro-acoustic, so his plan is at some point to go busking with it through an amplifier. — 00:14:31
  • ★★ Ali keeps a post-it pad on his Yamaha P125 keyboard with practice reminders; it now says "hiss practice", because his singing teacher told him to hiss more when practising. — 00:14:57
  • ★★ Ali is learning songs from The Greatest Showman, teaching himself to read music, and now takes piano lessons to get better at the piano. — 00:15:36
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a proper video on his desk setup. — 00:15:36
  • ★★ Ali's desk is the Fully Jarvis bamboo standing desk, usually kept at sitting height. — 00:15:36
  • ★★ Ali calls the Herman Miller Sail his favourite ergonomic chair of all time. — 00:15:36

00:15:50 — The desk: standing desk, Herman Miller Sail, monitor, peripherals, microphone, lights and overhead rig

  • ★★ The Herman Miller man who delivered Ali's chair gave him tips on sitting ergonomically, which is why Ali's desk is lower than he thought it would be. — 00:16:24
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a video in a bit about the ergonomic desk-height pro tip he got from Herman Miller. — 00:16:24
  • ★★ Ali's desk holds the LG 49-inch ultrawide monitor sent to him over a year ago, the IQUnix F96 keyboard he has used for ages, a Magic Trackpad and a Logitech MX Master 3 mouse. — 00:16:24
  • ★★ Ali's desk setup runs on a 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro, which he is going to replace very shortly with something like a Mac mini. — 00:16:24 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali uses his Shure SM7B microphone, with a Focusrite 2i4 Scarlett audio interface and a Cloudlifter, for his Zoom calls and his online courses. — 00:17:02 · Zoom
  • ★★ Ali keeps his 100,000-subscriber plaque at his desk because he finds it a little classier than the gold 1-million-subscriber plaque. — 00:17:31
  • ★★ At his desk Ali has a semi-permanent overhead camera rig for overhead tech videos and a Godox SL60 light with a space-light extension that he turns on with a single tap of a remote. — 00:17:31
  • ★★ Ali recently got a TV for the living room, now his favourite place to hang out in the evenings, usually watching the Nebula app on the Apple TV. — 00:18:00 · Nebula

00:18:30 — Sponsor read: CuriosityStream bundled with Nebula

00:19:57 — Philips Hue lighting scenes by voice; sign-off

  • ★★ All the living-room lights are Philips Hue, which Ali sets by asking Alexa for scenes such as "energize" and "concentrate"; for filming he uses "ice and fire", a blue and an orange glow. — 00:19:57 · Philips Hue

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Asked whether he plans more videos on his Tesla Model 3, Ali says yes and asks what viewers would like to see. — creator comment
  • ★★ Asked for a video on how he set up his overhead camera rig, Ali says he is planning to make one. — creator comment
  • ★★ Ali seldom uses his standing desk in standing mode; when he needs to, he unscrews the overhead camera rig's monopod from the ceiling in five seconds. — creator comment
  • ★★ Told that the new Macs cannot use an external GPU, Ali replies that he does not really use his eGPU much anyway. — creator comment
  • ★★ Asked whether he will stream World of Warcraft: Shadowlands once it is out, Ali replies only that he will see. (hedged) — creator comment

Humor (significant)

  • Ali shows the 1-million-subscriber plaque he keeps by his bed to sleep next to when he feels lonely — 00:01:48

    “i'm like well at least i've got a million subscribers so that boosts my self-esteem”

  • Ali shows the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine he looks at before bed each night — 00:02:59

    “it reminds me that i'm a doctor and that makes me feel good when i'm also feeling lonely”

  • Ali admits he should have cleaned the bathroom before filming — 00:04:39

    “I didn't want to create an impression that I am less of a waste man than I actually am”

  • Ali puts on his tailored Hoi An leather jacket and asks the viewers whether he looks cool — 00:06:57

    “Don't I just look really cool? What do you reckon? Is it all right? No. No, fine.”

  • Ali shows his Dyson V8 cordless vacuum — 00:09:09

    “is otherwise known as the spider sucking up device which is kind of its main purpose”

  • Ali shows his Cambridge degrees mounted on the living-room wall — 00:11:13

    “just to remind myself that I actually went to university and I'm not just unemployed waste man making videos on the internet”

  • Ali shows his phone tripod, which doubles as a selfie stick — 00:14:08

    “So if I want to feel like a Pakistani tourist, I can like roam around with my selfie stick like this.”

  • Among the gear on his desk Ali points out a note from his housemate — 00:16:24

    “a post-it note saying i hate you from my housemate which is very nice of her”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

People: Ali Abdaal's grandmother · Ali Abdaal's mother · Derren Brown · Ed Sheeran · James Hoffmann · Sheen

Works: A Little Happier · Game of Thrones · Harry Potter (book series) · Oxford Handbook for the Foundation Programme · Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine · The Greatest Showman · The Lord of the Rings

Organizations: CuriosityStream · Displate · Fully · Gymshark · Herman Miller · IKEA · John Lewis · Nebula · School of Scents · Standard · University of Cambridge

Places: Hoi An · Japan · Lesotho · London · Vietnam

Characters: Neville

Products: Amazon Alexa · Apple Magic Trackpad · Apple TV · Articulate · ATEM Mini Pro · Blackmagic eGPU · Chemex · Cloudlifter · Codenames · Dyson fan · Focusrite 2i4 · Godox SL60 · Google Drive · Hanabi · Herman Miller Sail · HomePod · HÅG Capisco · iPad Pro · IQUnix F96 · Jarvis · Kindle · LG 49WL95C · Logitech MX Master · Mac mini · MacBook · One Night Ultimate Werewolf · Pandemic · Philips Hue · PlayStation 4 · Shure SM7B · Tesla Model 3 · Uniqlo AIRism · Yamaha P125 · Zoom

Only in the description or credits: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

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