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7 Habits that Save Me 3+ Hours a Day

2023-03-10 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 11:27 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Lesson from a book, Family, His medical past, Sponsor segment present

Ali counts down seven habits that he says save him about three hours a day: capturing tasks at once (from Getting Things Done), the daily adventure, a colour-coded rainbow calendar, the five-minute rule, a phone kept in focus mode, a physical alarm clock, and no TV unless with friends.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Time as the most valuable non-renewable resource; seven habits that save three hours a day

  • ★★ Ali calls time our most valuable non-renewable resource: we can always make more money, but never more time. — 00:00:00 · first in: 2021-12-09, The Book That Changed My Financial Life 🤑
  • ★★ Ali says the seven habits he tries to do every day save him around three hours every day. — 00:00:00

00:00:17 — No. 7: the capture habit from Getting Things Done

  • ★★★ Habit no. 7 is capture, from David Allen's Getting Things Done, which Ali calls the bible of productivity: whenever you think of something you need to do, capture it at once in another system instead of doing it then, so your brain need not hold it. — 00:00:29
  • ★ If Ali remembers mid-work that he needs to call his grandma, he writes it on paper in front of him or, more likely, puts it straight into Things on his Mac. — 00:00:29 · Ali Abdaal's grandmother, Things 3
  • ★★ Capturing saves time and headspace, Ali says: you do not distract yourself going elsewhere to write the thing down, and you do not waste time trying to remember what you have forgotten. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Any tool works for capturing, Ali says (pen and paper, Post-it notes, Things, Todoist, Notion, Apple Reminders, Apple Notes), as long as you have one centralised place for your thoughts and ideas. — 00:00:58 · Things 3, Notion

00:01:27 — No. 6: the daily adventure

  • ★★★ Habit no. 6, the daily adventure: every morning when he sits down to work Ali asks what today's adventure is going to be, his most important task; he took it years ago from the daily highlight in the book Make Time. — 00:01:27 · daily adventure, daily highlight
  • ★★ Ideally the day's most important task is the first thing you do, Ali says, which removes the cognitive burden of remembering what it was you needed to do. — 00:01:56 · daily adventure

  • ★★★ Ali now says daily adventure rather than daily highlight because an adventure seems more fun: the single biggest productivity hack of all time is finding a way to enjoy what you do and draw energy from it. — 00:01:56 · daily adventure, daily highlight

    “The single biggest productivity hack of all time is finding a way to enjoy what you're doing”

  • ★ To make an important PowerPoint presentation feel like an adventure, Ali might play Harry Potter music, go to a coffee shop or sit on a park bench if it is sunny. — 00:02:26 · Harry Potter (book series), daily adventure

  • ★★★ Habit no. 5, the rainbow calendar: ideally every morning Ali plans his calendar for the rest of the day, colour-coded so it looks like a rainbow without too many gaps. — 00:02:26 · time-blocking

00:02:57 — No. 5: the rainbow calendar

  • ★★ When Ali has a gap in his calendar with no intention for it, he inevitably spends it on something unintentional such as randomly scrolling Instagram or TikTok. — 00:03:11 · Instagram, TikTok
  • ★★ Ali has nothing against social media, being a professional social media user himself; he wants his time on YouTube or social media to be time he intends to spend there. — 00:03:11 · YouTube
  • ★★ Every day Ali's calendar has blocks for breakfast, work, lunch, sometimes a little break, and the walk to get coffee, and sometimes a block just to do whatever he likes. — 00:03:40 · time-blocking
  • ★★ When Ali has experimented with not time-blocking the daytime, by about 12 o'clock he found he had nothing to do and ended up scrolling Instagram. — 00:03:40 · Instagram, time-blocking
  • ★★★ Habit no. 4, the five-minute rule: if you are struggling to do something, just get started for five minutes and let yourself stop after, since the hardest part is getting started; Ali used it to start filming this video. — 00:04:10

00:04:17 — No. 4: the five-minute rule

  • ★★★ The rule's second side: five minutes is far better than nothing, so instead of waiting for the hour (at 11:48, for 12) Ali uses two lots of five minutes, on emails, replying to friends on WhatsApp, his book or drafting a video. — 00:04:39 · WhatsApp
  • ★★★ Asked how he made videos while working full time in the channel's first three years, Ali says a big part was the five-minute rule: between patients, waiting for blood results or for tea he made for the nurses, he drafted videos on paper. — 00:05:37

00:05:55 — Sponsor read: Huel

  • ★ Ali says that, with his latest health goals, he has been working with a fitness coach to try to get hench. — 00:06:36
  • ★★ Habit no. 3, the focus phone: phones are an incredible invention but an absolute time sink, Ali says; most of us do not mean to spend a lot of time on them. — 00:07:05

00:07:18 — No. 3: the focus phone

  • ★★★ Ali's phone is almost always in a focus mode, switched automatically by the time blocks in his calendar; in work mode only his girlfriend, mum, brother and sister-in-law get notifications through, so he opens WhatsApp group chats on his own time. — 00:07:34 · time-blocking, Ali Abdaal's mother, Taimur Abdaal, WhatsApp
  • ★★ Ali always keeps his phone face down: face up in front of you it is a recipe for distraction, face down far less inviting. — 00:08:03
  • ★★ When he spends too much time on social media, Ali installs OneSec, which makes him take a breath before Instagram, TikTok or YouTube opens and suggests apps such as Kindle or Audible instead. — 00:08:03 · Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Kindle, Audible

00:09:00 — No. 2: a physical alarm clock

  • ★★★ Habit no. 2: a physical alarm clock at bedtime instead of the phone, a habit Ali has been on and off with for several years. — 00:09:02
  • ★★ Whenever Ali uses his phone as his alarm, charging by his bed, he wastes at least half an hour and sometimes two or three hours before sleep, and in the morning snoozes, cancels the alarm or lies in bed on his phone. — 00:09:02
  • ★★★ Habit no. 1, which Ali says saves him at least 60 minutes a day: his rule that he is not allowed to watch TV unless it is with friends. — 00:09:31
  • ★★ Ali calls BS on most of the near-religious idea that you need two hours of Netflix every night or your health suffers. — 00:09:31 · Netflix

00:09:38 — No. 1: no TV unless with friends

  • ★ Ali thinks the average American watches between one and four hours of TV a day; his own average was about an hour a day. (hedged) — 00:10:00
  • ★★ Realising he probably would not regret on his deathbed having watched less TV, Ali made the rule at university: no TV unless with friends; Game of Thrones became social nights with friends instead of evenings catching up on Grey's Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries, The Office or Friends reruns. — 00:10:00 · Game of Thrones
  • ★★ The no-TV rule freed time at university to build his business and YouTube channel; as a doctor Ali almost never watched TV and did YouTube work in the evenings. — 00:10:29 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Aware some will accuse him of toxic productivity and hustle culture, Ali suggests cutting TV out for a month to see if you miss it; if you really cannot live without it, you are living your best life intentionally. — 00:10:29 · Netflix

00:10:59 — Wrap-up and the 12 cheap purchases video

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked what GCSE students should do to manage their time and get top grades, the channel says to learn how to study effectively and everything becomes easy. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked why Ali switched from Todoist to Things 3, the channel says it is just the nicer aesthetic. — creator comment · Things 3
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked which calendar Ali uses, the channel says it is Fantastical. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked about the microphone in the video, the channel says it is an Elgato Wave:3. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: daily adventure · five-minute rule · focus phone · quick capture · rainbow calendar

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's grandmother · Ali Abdaal's mother · David Allen · Taimur Abdaal

Works: Friends · Game of Thrones · Getting Things Done · Grey's Anatomy · Harry Potter (book series) · Make Time · The Office · The Vampire Diaries

Organizations: Instagram · Netflix · TikTok · YouTube

Concepts: daily highlight · time-blocking

Products: Apple Notes · Apple Reminders · Audible · Kindle · Notion · OneSec · Things 3 · Todoist · WhatsApp

Only in the description or credits: Elgato Wave:3 · Fantastical

Also centred on five-minute rule: How to Stop Procrastinating · The 5 Minute Rule ⏳

Also centred on quick capture: Study with Me + Anki Flashcard Method - Ali Abdaal · The 5 Key Principles of Productivity

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