I Tried 137 Productivity Tools. These Are The Best.

2023-08-30 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 18:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Productivity and time, Health, sleep and habits) · mode: Demonstration and walkthrough · tags: Sponsor segment present, His own products discussed, His own numbers

Ali walks through a day of the productivity tools he actually uses, from morning pages in a paper journal and Things 3 to Superhuman, Notion, Rize, a treadmill desk, Reader, Apple Notes, Otter.ai, Loom and Strong, with reducing friction as his guiding rule.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Introduction

★★ Ali recommends Withings smart scales: they are wifi-enabled and sync with Apple Health, so he can track how his weight changes over time. — 00:00:00

00:00:15 — Early morning: smart scales, coffee and morning pages

★★ Ali makes his morning coffee with a Clever Dripper, which he calls a very nice way to make filter coffee. — 00:00:29
★★★ One of Ali's favourite productivity tools of all time is a pen-and-paper journal, in which he does morning pages, a technique from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: three handwritten pages of stream of consciousness. — 00:00:29
★★ Ali finds morning pages a great way to unclog his brain of stray thoughts, and they help him come up with ideas for his business and his life. — 00:00:58

00:01:15 — Planning the day in Things 3

★★ In Things 3, Ali manages his to-dos as two lists, a to-do list and a today list, which he finds keeps things simple. — 00:01:27 · Things 3
★★ Ali keeps "call my grandma" as a Things 3 task that repeats two days after completion, so it reminds him again two days after he ticks it off. — 00:01:27 · Things 3, Ali Abdaal's grandmother
★★★ When planning his day, Ali picks from his endless anytime list only what he needs to get done today; he does not bother planning the week or the month, which he finds a bit mythical. — 00:01:56 · Things 3

00:02:21 — Changing up the location, a sling bag and reducing friction

★★★ Changing up where he works, as he did at medical school by moving between libraries and coffee shops each day, makes work feel a lot more like play, Ali finds. — 00:02:26
★★ Ali says the first chapter of his upcoming book, Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You, is about making work feel more like play. — 00:02:26 · Feel-Good Productivity (book), feel-good productivity (concept)
★★ Ali uses the Peak Design 6L Sling, a fairly simple bag with enough space for his 11-inch iPad Pro, his journal and a pen. — 00:02:55 · iPad Pro
★★ Ali finds two bags helpful: his journal and iPad always live in the sling, so to write in a coffee shop he can grab it and go instead of lugging his enormous laptop camera bag. — 00:02:55 · iPad Pro
★★★ Ali swears by reducing friction as much as possible for the things he wants to do more of, such as working from coffee shops or the park, because it makes the habit much easier to build. — 00:02:55 · friction
★★ Ali writes most first drafts on his iPad in Ulysses, a simple, minimalist Markdown writing app, then moves them to Notion for videos, Google Docs for book work or ConvertKit for email. — 00:03:42 · iPad Pro, Notion

00:03:51 — Writing in a coffee shop in Ulysses

★★ Ali tracks his daily word count in Ulysses against a target he has set of a thousand words a day. — 00:04:12
★★ Ali says he started therapy in the last few months and it has been game-changing in helping him understand his emotions and the limiting beliefs getting in the way of his productivity and his life. — 00:04:12

00:04:22 — Sponsor read

00:05:25 — Desk work: focus music, email, newsletters, Notion, the treadmill desk, the keyboard and Rize

★★ At his desk Ali plays ambience videos such as Lord of the Rings Rivendell music full screen on his second monitor, as background sound that helps him focus while working. — 00:05:39
★★★ Ali has used Superhuman for email since 2019 and calls it the fastest tool he has seen for navigating email: its keyboard shortcuts get him through his inbox about twice as fast as the Gmail app. — 00:05:39 · keyboard navigation
★ One of the two newsletters Ali reads most often is Morning Brew, a daily newsletter on tech, business and finance. — 00:06:09
★★ Ali also reads Readwise's morning email of five highlights from books and articles he has highlighted over about ten years, a great way to resurface what he highlighted in the past. — 00:06:09 · Readwise
★★★ Ali has used Notion since 2019, and his company runs basically entirely on Notion and a few other bits of software. — 00:06:38 · Notion
★★ Ali's company uses an OKR system and works in five-week cycles, in which each team member has a quest or project or two. — 00:07:07
★★ Ali calls his under-desk treadmill one of the most useful additions to his productivity arsenal; in about six months he has used it on 65 days, 144 times, covering 235 kilometres. — 00:07:07
★★★ Ali really recommends trying a treadmill under a standing desk to anyone who has a standing desk, while granting that nobody needs one. — 00:08:05
★★ Ali's mechanical keyboard is one his team is building for its tech brand; he has been testing a bunch of mechanical keyboards over the last 12 months or so. — 00:08:05
★★★ Ali recommends Rize, an automatic time tracker he has used on his Mac and Windows PC since November 2021, which records which app, Chrome tab or Safari window is active. — 00:08:42
★★ Rize shows Ali spent 183 hours in Google Docs in 2023 up to August, most of it editing his book. — 00:09:11 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
★★★ Ali loved Rize so much that he reached out to its creators and offered to invest; his company is now an angel investor in Rize. — 00:09:11

00:09:36 — Filming setup and storage

★★ Ali's cameras are hooked by HDMI to an ATEM Mini Pro camera switcher, so in a live session for his Part-Time YouTuber Academy he can switch between the main and overhead angles. — 00:10:09 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
★★ Ali's main camera records through a Sennheiser MKH416 microphone kept just out of shot; for podcasts, some videos and Zoom calls he uses an Elgato Wave:3 connected to his Mac. — 00:10:09 · Zoom
★★ All of Ali's footage goes to Google Drive, where his team has used 75 of its shared 115 terabytes; the team uses Google Workspace for its email addresses and this storage. — 00:11:16 · Google Drive
★★★ On the toilet, Ali scrolls Twitter or Instagram like most people when he is unintentional with his time; when he is intentional he reads in Reader, which he calls amazing. — 00:12:00 · Twitter, Instagram

00:12:02 — Reading articles in Reader in the bathroom

★★ Ali's highlights in Reader sync to Readwise and from there to Notion, so what he reads and finds interesting is saved and resurfaced automatically. — 00:12:29 · Readwise, Notion
★★ Ali has used Fantastical as his calendar app for years. — 00:12:29

00:12:52 — Afternoon: calendar, walks, Apple Notes, Otter.ai, Slack and Loom

★★★ Ali calls walking an absolutely underrated productivity tool: it is fun, recharges energy and reconnects you with nature, and some of his best ideas come while walking. — 00:12:58
★★ Having tried dozens of note-taking apps, Ali defaults to Apple Notes when he needs to write something down quickly, such as ideas on a walk. — 00:12:58
★★ Ali's quick notes land in an Apple Notes inbox folder on his iPhone home screen, which he processes now and then into Notion, Ulysses documents or tasks in Things. — 00:13:28 · Notion, Things 3
★★ Ali says he will turn the notes he took while listening to The Greatness Mindset, the audiobook by his friend Lewis Howes, into a Book Club episode on the channel. — 00:13:28 · Book Club
★★★ Ali's book Feel-Good Productivity will also be on Audible: he is narrating the audiobook himself at the Penguin studios next month (September 2023), over three whole days. — 00:13:57 · Feel-Good Productivity (book), Audible
★★★ Otter.ai transcribes Ali's meetings and conversations almost perfectly and uses AI to summarise them; on walks he dictates video ideas into it instead of typing on his phone. — 00:14:55
★★★ Ali's team updates each other with Loom screen recordings instead of meetings, watched at double speed; Angus's Loom on the business financials, which Ali watched at 2.5x, saved a meeting. — 00:15:24 · Angus
★★ Ali works with Dan Go, a fitness coach who remotely programs his workouts. — 00:15:54

00:16:00 — Gym: a coach's programme and the Strong app

★★★ For people working out on their own, Ali recommends the app Strong, which he used to track his workouts long before working with Dan Go; you can program your own workouts into it or add exercises during a session. — 00:16:23
★★ Because Strong shows what you did last time, Ali says, it makes progressive overload simple: you try to increase either the weight or the reps. — 00:16:23
★★ Ali's rule is that whenever he is in a cab or on public transport he gets out his iPad and journals in Day One, an app he has used for years. — 00:16:52 · Day One, iPad, iPad Pro

00:17:03 — End of the day: journaling in transit, winding down and reading; sign-off

★ To wind down in the evening, Ali plays relaxing yoga and meditation music on an Amazon Echo in his room. — 00:17:21
★★ Ali, whose hips, hamstrings and neck are very tight according to a physio he saw recently, keeps his Lululemon yoga mat out in the bedroom at all times to cut the friction of stretching before bed. — 00:17:21 · friction
★ The last thing Ali usually does before bed is set his phone alarm and read on his Kindle. — 00:17:51 · Kindle

Threads in this video

refine · Which tech is worth buying? — Ali recommends Withings smart scales: they are wifi-enabled and sync with Apple Health, so he can track how his weight changes over time. (00:00:00)
refine · Should you journal, and how? — One of Ali's favourite productivity tools of all time is a pen-and-paper journal, in which he does morning pages, a technique from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: three handwritten pages of stream of consciousness. (00:00:29)
restate · Should you journal, and how? — Ali's rule is that whenever he is in a cab or on public transport he gets out his iPad and journals in Day One, an app he has used for years. (00:16:52)
refine · Should you run your work from a to-do list? — In Things 3, Ali manages his to-dos as two lists, a to-do list and a today list, which he finds keeps things simple. (00:01:27)
refine · How should you plan your day? — When planning his day, Ali picks from his endless anytime list only what he needs to get done today; he does not bother planning the week or the month, which he finds a bit mythical. (00:01:56)
refine · Where should you study: at home, in a library or in a coffee shop? — Changing up where he works, as he did at medical school by moving between libraries and coffee shops each day, makes work feel a lot more like play, Ali finds. (00:02:26)
restate · How do you build a good habit and break a bad one? — Ali swears by reducing friction as much as possible for the things he wants to do more of, such as working from coffee shops or the park, because it makes the habit much easier to build. (00:02:55)
refine · How do you build a good habit and break a bad one? — Ali, whose hips, hamstrings and neck are very tight according to a physio he saw recently, keeps his Lululemon yoga mat out in the bedroom at all times to cut the friction of stretching before bed. (00:17:21)
restate · Should you listen to music while studying? — At his desk Ali plays ambience videos such as Lord of the Rings Rivendell music full screen on his second monitor, as background sound that helps him focus while working. (00:05:39)
restate · How should you manage your email? — Ali has used Superhuman for email since 2019 and calls it the fastest tool he has seen for navigating email: its keyboard shortcuts get him through his inbox about twice as fast as the Gmail app. (00:05:39)
restate · How do you remember what you read? — Ali also reads Readwise's morning email of five highlights from books and articles he has highlighted over about ten years, a great way to resurface what he highlighted in the past. (00:06:09)
refine · How do you remember what you read? — Ali's highlights in Reader sync to Readwise and from there to Notion, so what he reads and finds interesting is saved and resurfaced automatically. (00:12:29)
restate · Which productivity apps should you use? — Ali has used Notion since 2019, and his company runs basically entirely on Notion and a few other bits of software. (00:06:38)
refine · Which productivity apps should you use? — Ali recommends Rize, an automatic time tracker he has used on his Mac and Windows PC since November 2021, which records which app, Chrome tab or Safari window is active. (00:08:42)
refine · How should you set up your desk? — Ali really recommends trying a treadmill under a standing desk to anyone who has a standing desk, while granting that nobody needs one. (00:08:05)
milestone · Ali's team works on a physical product brand around tech, keyboards and bags (2022) — Ali's mechanical keyboard is one his team is building for its tech brand; he has been testing a bunch of mechanical keyboards over the last 12 months or so. (00:08:05)
refine · What gear do you need to make YouTube videos? — Ali's cameras are hooked by HDMI to an ATEM Mini Pro camera switcher, so in a live session for his Part-Time YouTuber Academy he can switch between the main and overhead angles. (00:10:09)
restate · How should you store and back up your files? — All of Ali's footage goes to Google Drive, where his team has used 75 of its shared 115 terabytes; the team uses Google Workspace for its email addresses and this storage. (00:11:16)
refine · How do you stop your phone and social media from eating your time? — On the toilet, Ali scrolls Twitter or Instagram like most people when he is unintentional with his time; when he is intentional he reads in Reader, which he calls amazing. (00:12:00)
refine · How do you have more energy during the day? — Ali calls walking an absolutely underrated productivity tool: it is fun, recharges energy and reconnects you with nature, and some of his best ideas come while walking. (00:12:58)
refine · Which note-taking app should you use? — Having tried dozens of note-taking apps, Ali defaults to Apple Notes when he needs to write something down quickly, such as ideas on a walk. (00:12:58)
promised · Ali promises a Book Club episode on Lewis Howes's The Greatness Mindset (2023) — Ali says he will turn the notes he took while listening to The Greatness Mindset, the audiobook by his friend Lewis Howes, into a Book Club episode on the channel. (00:13:28)
milestone · Ali's first book, which a publisher asked him to write (2020) — Ali's book Feel-Good Productivity will also be on Audible: he is narrating the audiobook himself at the Penguin studios next month (September 2023), over three whole days. (00:13:57)
refine · How should you use AI in work and life? — Otter.ai transcribes Ali's meetings and conversations almost perfectly and uses AI to summarise them; on walks he dictates video ideas into it instead of typing on his phone. (00:14:55)
progress update · Ali says he is doing a fitness journey at some point soon (2022) — Ali works with Dan Go, a fitness coach who remotely programs his workouts. (00:15:54)
refine · How do you exercise consistently and get in shape? — For people working out on their own, Ali recommends the app Strong, which he used to track his workouts long before working with Dan Go; you can program your own workouts into it or add exercises during a session. (00:16:23)
restate · Should you use keyboard shortcuts? — Ali has used Superhuman for email since 2019 and calls it the fastest tool he has seen for navigating email: its keyboard shortcuts get him through his inbox about twice as fast as the Gmail app. (00:05:39)
refine · What morning routine should you have? — One of Ali's favourite productivity tools of all time is a pen-and-paper journal, in which he does morning pages, a technique from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: three handwritten pages of stream of consciousness. (00:00:29)
milestone · Ali sets himself a challenge to write a thousand words every day (2020) — Ali tracks his daily word count in Ulysses against a target he has set of a thousand words a day. (00:04:12)
progress update · Ali promises details in 2023 and a documented journey of his team's new physical product brand (2022) — Ali's mechanical keyboard is one his team is building for its tech brand; he has been testing a bunch of mechanical keyboards over the last 12 months or so. (00:08:05)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Ali says he is doing a fitness journey at some point soon (2022) — open (updates through 2023, not reported done); last: progress update, 2023-09-22
Ali promises details in 2023 and a documented journey of his team's new physical product brand (2022) — open (updates through 2023, not reported done); last: progress update, 2023-09-19
Ali promises a Book Club episode on Lewis Howes's The Greatness Mindset (2023) — open (no report in 2023); last: promised, 2023-08-30
Ali's first book, which a publisher asked him to write (2020) — completed; last: milestone, 2023-12-26
Ali's team works on a physical product brand around tech, keyboards and bags (2022) — running; last: milestone, 2023-09-19

Mentioned

Central: friction · morning pages · Notion · Rize · Things 3

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's grandmother · Angus · Dan Go · Julia Cameron · Lewis Howes

Projects: Ali's tech, keyboards and bags product brand · Book Club · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · The Artist's Way · The Greatness Mindset · The Lord of the Rings

Organizations: Instagram · Lululemon · Morning Brew · Penguin UK · Twitter · Ugmonk

Concepts: angel investment

Products: Amazon Echo · Apple Notes · ATEM Mini Pro · Audible · CalDigit Thunderbolt Dock · Clever Dripper · ConvertKit · Day One · Elgato Wave:3 · Fantastical · Gatherer · Gmail · Google Docs · Google Drive · Google Workspace · iPad Pro · Kindle · Loom · Mac mini · Otter.ai · Peak Design Everyday Sling · Reader · Readwise · Sennheiser MKH416 · Slack · Strong · Superhuman · Ulysses · WalkingPad C2 · Withings smart scale · Zoom

Also centred on morning pages: I Journaled Everyday for 90 Days. Here’s What I Learned. · My 3 Favourite Ways to Journal #ad #sponsored

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