Skip to content

10 cheap purchases that improved my life

2021-02-28 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 9:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading (also: Health, sleep and habits, Learning and studying, Tools, apps and tech, Relationships and personal life) · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Lesson from a book, His medical past, Family, Aimed at students, Sponsor segment present

Ali lists ten cheap purchases that improved his life: a physical alarm clock, an electric toothbrush with a timer, a ukulele, Pukka Pads, Austin Kleon's three books, a desk water bottle, a deck of cards, a Kindle and a doorstop, with a Skillshare subscription, the video's sponsor, at number one.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Intro: ten cheap purchases that improved his quality of life

00:00:07 — Number 10: a physical alarm clock

  • ★★ Before he had a physical alarm clock, Ali used his phone as an alarm on his bedside table and spent hours at night scrolling Twitter, browsing Instagram and replying to messages on Hinge instead of sleeping. — 00:00:07 · Twitter, Instagram
  • ★★★ Ali recommends a physical alarm clock, which lets you keep your phone across the room or in the kitchen: for five to 20 pounds it can massively improve your quality of sleep. — 00:00:29

00:00:43 — Number 9: an electric toothbrush with a 30-second timer

  • ★★ Ali recommends an electric toothbrush with a timer that signals every 30 seconds and at two minutes, so you spend 30 seconds on each quadrant of the mouth and brush for two minutes. — 00:00:56
  • ★★ After a year with a timed electric toothbrush Ali noticed whiter teeth; his brother Taimur remarked on it while they recorded their podcast and bought one immediately. — 00:01:10 · Taimur Abdaal, Not Overthinking
  • ★★★ Ali recommends the ukulele as super easy to learn: practising about five or ten minutes a day for a week or two gets you playing songs and singing along, and it was his gateway into music. — 00:01:25

00:01:29 — Number 8: the ukulele

  • ★★ Ali started learning the ukulele in his second year of medical school; it was the first instrument he learned, and he learned it by following YouTube tutorials. — 00:01:29
  • ★★ Ali advises buying the cheapest ukulele, learning on it and upgrading later if you want; his first basic ukulele cost 15 pounds. — 00:02:08

00:02:18 — Number 6: the Pukka Pad

  • ★★ After trying countless A4 writing pads, Ali keeps coming back to the Pukka Pad, his favourite writing pad of all time, for its paper quality, look and feel. — 00:02:23
  • ★ Ali filled many basic Pukka Pad Originals at medical school and now uses the Pukka Pad Project, with the same paper plus dividers. — 00:02:35
  • ★★ Ali has been planning the book he is writing on a Pukka Pad Project kept on his desk at all times. — 00:02:53
  • ★★ Ali likes scribbling things down on an A4 Pukka Pad rather than writing them in an app. — 00:03:05

00:03:14 — Austin Kleon's trilogy of books

  • ★★ Ali recommends Austin Kleon's trilogy, Show Your Work, Steal Like an Artist and Keep Going, and keeps physical copies of all three on his desk. — 00:03:14 · Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!
  • ★★★ Ali calls Austin Kleon's Show Your Work the book that most changed his life, because it encouraged him to write online. — 00:03:22 · Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon, show your work
  • ★★ Austin Kleon (quoted): Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist argues that nothing is original: we need not worry about having original ideas, but can steal like artists and take ideas from different sources. — 00:03:32 · Austin Kleon
  • ★ Austin Kleon (quoted): Austin Kleon's Keep Going is about how to stay creative through the good times and the bad. — 00:03:51 · Austin Kleon
  • ★★ Whenever he is in a creative rut or slump, Ali grabs one of Austin Kleon's books from his desk, opens it at a random page and always finds inspiration. — 00:03:51 · Austin Kleon

00:04:21 — Number 5: the water bottle

  • ★★ Keeping a nice water bottle on his desk at all times means Ali now drinks much more water. — 00:04:32
  • ★★ On days he drinks more water Ali feels less fat and bloated and his skin feels like it is glowing, though he is not sure how much of that is placebo. (hedged) — 00:04:32
  • ★★ Ali was taught at medical school to drink two litres of water a day, and thanks to the water bottle on his desk he now does. — 00:04:32
  • ★★ Ali has kept a deck of cards on his desk for almost ten years, since he got into close-up magic in 2011. — 00:04:32

00:04:59 — Number 4: the deck of cards and his close-up magic

  • ★★ Ali took up close-up magic after watching the magician Michael Vincent on Penn & Teller: Fool Us. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ Ali says close-up magic first started as a way to raise his "sexual market value" among his peers at school; at university, having reinvented himself as not a massive nerd, he kept it up. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ At university Ali was paid to perform close-up magic at balls, parties and events, walking up to groups of people in a tuxedo. — 00:05:02

00:05:45 — Number 3: the Amazon Kindle

  • ★★ The cheapest Amazon Kindle sometimes costs 50 or 60 dollars, which Ali says makes it probably the most expensive item on his list. — 00:05:45 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali calls the Kindle one of the physical items that has most impacted his life, because it lets you read infinitely more books than you otherwise would; he cannot recommend it highly enough. — 00:05:45 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Whenever he gets a book recommendation, Ali buys the book on his Kindle immediately and starts reading it there and then. — 00:06:01 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali has used a Kindle basically every day since 2008, or since the first Kindle came out. (hedged) — 00:06:01 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali's own Kindle is the Oasis, but he says you probably do not need it: the Kindle Paperwhite, or even the basic Kindle, will do, depending on how much you want to save. — 00:06:01 · Kindle
  • ★★ Every night, after his skincare routine and taping his mouth shut, Ali gets into bed and reads on his Kindle until he falls asleep. — 00:06:01 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali says he has probably got more value for money from a doorstop than from any other purchase in his life. (hedged) — 00:06:37
  • ★★★ Once the pandemic is over, Ali recommends a doorstop for everyone: propping your door open, mostly at university, is the best thing ever. — 00:06:37

00:06:44 — Number 2: the doorstop

  • ★★★ Ali does not remember the nights he worked harder for an extra 1% on an essay; because people felt comfortable interrupting him at work at university, those interruptions became friendships that last today. — 00:07:16
  • ★★ Ali has eight online classes on Skillshare, two of them on studying for exams. — 00:07:45 · Skillshare classes

00:07:46 — Number 1: a Skillshare subscription, the sponsor; sign-off

  • ★★ Ali has a Skillshare class on how to be happier with lessons from Stoicism (the Stoicism Masterclass), and another, on productivity for creators, is coming out in a few weeks. — 00:08:14 · Skillshare classes

In the description and comments

  • ★ Asked to review the Rocketbook, Ali replies that he already has. — creator comment
  • ★★ Asked which household coffee brand he recommends, Ali names Pact. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Austin Kleon · Kindle · Pukka Pad

Also: People: Jonathan Lethem · Michael Vincent · Taimur Abdaal

Projects: Not Overthinking · Skillshare classes

Works: How to Be Happier - A Stoicism Masterclass · Keep Going · Penn & Teller: Fool Us · Show Your Work! · Steal Like an Artist

Organizations: Instagram · Twitter

Products: Hinge

Only in the description or credits: Pact · Rocketbook Everlast

← Previous: Brandon Sanderson on Writing, Storytelling and Fantasy Books · Next → My Favourite Mac Apps - What's on my Macbook Pro