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Productivity for Lazy People - The RAD System

2021-07-04 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:22 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Sponsor segment present, His medical past, His own numbers, Lesson from a book

Ali presents strategic laziness as his RAD system: reduce (decide not to do things and back out of projects, feed two birds with one scone, batch similar tasks), automate (passive income, systems and checklists, text expansion) and delegate (value your time in money, hire help, pay coaches such as his personal trainer).

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Strategic laziness instead of the Protestant work ethic

  • ★★★ Ali used to think that what he had to get done had to look and feel like hard work; over the last few years he has realised that being strategically lazy is a better way forward. — 00:00:29

    “being strategically lazy is actually a better way forward”

  • ★★ Ali cites a quote said to be from Bill Gates: to get something done he will always find a lazy person, because they will find an easy way to do it. (hedged) — 00:00:29

  • ★★ Strategic laziness, as Ali means it, asks how to make what we do easier, so that it can be done more lazily and is less of a heavy lift. — 00:00:29

00:01:05 — Reduce: decide not to do things, feed two birds with one scone, batching

  • ★★★ Ali's system of strategic laziness has three parts that spell RAD: reduce, automate and delegate. — 00:01:05
  • ★★★ The first way to reduce in Ali's RAD system, spending less time on what you have to do, is simply to decide not to do things. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ At medical school Ali's to-do list was so overloaded that he had no margin in his day; he had been chasing projects for CV points because he wanted to get into plastic surgery, which is very competitive. — 00:01:34
  • ★★ After many weeks of soul-searching at medical school, Ali backed out of projects he had said yes to earlier; it was painful for about a day. — 00:02:03
  • ★★ Backing out of his medical-school projects was really good for Ali, who could focus on what he wanted, and for the team, which no longer had him half-assing work he was not interested in. — 00:02:33
  • ★★ Ali says it is totally okay to say no to things up front, though he is very bad at it and trying to get better. — 00:02:33
  • ★★★ Once you have said yes to something, Ali says, you are allowed to change your mind later and withdraw your consent. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Every few weeks, when overwhelmed, Ali goes through his projects list, finds ones he no longer wants to do and messages the people involved to back out; he has always been glad of it in the long run. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Since taking Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain course, Ali uses his Twitter scrolling on the toilet, in bed or waiting for a bus to find ideas, which he saves into his notes and expands on later. — 00:03:44 · Twitter
  • ★★ Ali's second way to reduce is to feed two birds with one scone: something done for one reason, such as having fun on Twitter, can bring several benefits, and he looks through his life for more such cases. — 00:04:22 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Ali's third way to reduce is batching similar tasks together, a standard productivity idea he first came across in Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek. — 00:04:22 · The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali once filmed one YouTube video at a time; now he has one filming day a week, on Thursdays, when he films two, three or even four videos, because setting up lights and camera and getting himself ready takes so long. — 00:04:52
  • ★★ Ali finds batching useful in many areas of life: making YouTube videos, answering emails, admin and opening his physical mail. — 00:04:52

00:05:35 — Automate: passive income, systems and checklists, apps and text expansion

  • ★★★ Ali calls making passive income a form of strategic laziness: active income trades time for money, which he calls generally suboptimal. — 00:05:35 · passive income
  • ★★ When you build something, such as a YouTube video, a book, a digital product or an online course, Ali says you do the work once and can sell it many times to many people without extra work. — 00:06:04 · passive income
  • ★★★ Whenever Ali finds himself doing something more than once, such as making a YouTube video or opening certain files on his Mac, he tries to build a system or an automation to make it easier. — 00:06:30
  • ★★ Ali's team works from a checklist of everything a YouTube video needs, a concept from Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto; in surgery he has assisted in, a checklist is always gone through. — 00:06:59
  • ★★ Ali finds a defined system for managing a to-do list and email really useful; his video on his lazy (LAZI) productivity system expands on it. — 00:06:59
  • ★★★ Ali is working on a productivity course that will show exactly how he builds his system for managing his to-do list, email and files; it is coming out in August 2021, probably. (hedged) — 00:07:29
  • ★★★ Ali calls the text expansion feature of iOS and macOS incredible for automating tedious typing: "!e" fills in his email address and "!gear" a link to his YouTube gear page. — 00:07:52

00:08:22 — Delegate: the dollar value of your time, coaches and the personal trainer

  • ★★★ Delegation, the D of Ali's RAD system, is for him one of the ultimate forms of strategic laziness, because we do not have to do everything ourselves. — 00:08:22
  • ★★ Ali says delegation is not only for the rich: we delegate preparing food to the chef at a restaurant or cafe and our health to the doctor, and can find other parts of life where delegating makes sense. — 00:08:51
  • ★★★ Ali's first step in delegating is to work out the money value of your own time: anything you do not enjoy that you could delegate for less than that, you absolutely should delegate. — 00:09:19 · money buys back time
  • ★★ Ali might value his time at $25 an hour; if cleaning, laundry or ironing that he does not enjoy takes him a few hours a week, he can hire a cleaner or someone to do all three. (hedged) — 00:09:19 · money buys back time
  • ★★ Ali stresses that delegating does not mean his time is worth more than the other person's: the money value of his time is only higher than what they charge for the service. — 00:09:52
  • ★★ For about ten years Ali had a gym membership and went about twice a week without much progress; around this time last year (mid-2020) he got a personal trainer and now has sessions twice a week. — 00:09:52
  • ★★ Ali calls paying his personal trainer Dan strategically lazy: Dan's gym is nice, training is more fun with someone there, and Ali need not set up weights, track numbers or worry about his form. — 00:10:43
  • ★★ Asked by his mother why he cannot just go to the gym by himself, Ali says he could in theory, but he is not disciplined enough and does not enjoy the gym alone enough to make it a habit. — 00:11:16 · Ali Abdaal's mother
  • ★★★ If something in your life is a real priority and you have some disposable income, Ali thinks investing in a coach, trainer or teacher for it is often one of the most valuable things you can do, with a very high return. — 00:11:16

00:11:58 — Sponsor read

00:12:57 — Sign-off and course mailing list

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): To a viewer who thought the LAZI system was the one for lazy people, the channel replies that the LAZI and RAD systems work together. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: batching · RAD system · strategic laziness

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's mother · Atul Gawande · Bill Gates · Dan (trainer, mentioned from 2021) · Tiago Forte · Tim Ferriss

Works: Building a Second Brain · The 4-Hour Workweek · The Checklist Manifesto

Organizations: Twitter

Concepts: LAZI productivity system · passive income · Plastic surgery · text expansion

Products: iOS · macOS

Only in the description or credits: Productivity for Lazy People

Also centred on batching: How I Manage my Time as a Doctor + YouTuber - 9 Time Management Tips

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