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How to Make Next Year The Best Year of Your Life

2023-12-22 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, Ali Abdaal (channel) · recording, 16:03 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design (also: Productivity and time) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Feel-Good Productivity thesis, His own products discussed, Sponsor segment present

Ali gives three methods for making the coming year the best year of your life: rate your alignment in nine areas of life plus joy on a wheel of life, set one 12-month celebration goal per area and write it down with its why, then block time for those goals in an ideal-week calendar.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — What makes a year the best year of your life: progress, balance and enjoyment

  • ★★★ Ali says making a year the best year of your life means three things: progress towards what truly matters, a life broadly in balance, and enjoying every day on its own merit rather than as a means to an end. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Ali's three favourite methods for making the coming year meaningful, balanced and enjoyable are simple and can be applied at the start, middle or end of the year. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Ali's first method is the wheel of life, a simple reflection exercise: split life into components and rate how you feel about each area. — 00:00:29

00:00:43 — Method one: the Wheel of Life

  • ★★ Ali's wheel of life has nine segments: health split into body, mind and soul; relationships into romance, family and friends; work into mission, money and growth. — 00:00:58 · Mental health
  • ★★★ Ali rates each wheel-of-life area from 0 to 10 for alignment rather than satisfaction: you may be 3/10 satisfied with money yet 10/10 aligned if you are taking the actions needed to get where you want. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Ali adds one final category to the wheel of life, kept off to the side: joy, how aligned your actions are with the amount of joy you want in your life. — 00:02:54
  • ★★ Ali rates his own joy at about six out of 10 at the moment. (hedged) — 00:02:54

  • ★★★ For Ali, productivity is using our time in a way that is intentional, effective and enjoyable, which he calls the message of his book Feel-Good Productivity. — 00:03:53 · feel-good productivity (concept), Feel-Good Productivity (book)

    “productivity is using our time in a way that's intentional and effective and enjoyable”

  • ★★ Ali says many people who want to be more productive never take an inventory of their life, because they think productivity is only about work, hustle or grind. — 00:03:53

  • ★★ After rating, Ali advises circling the one area in each of work, health and relationships that stands out as needing work. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ On his own wheel of life Ali gives friends four out of 10 because he rarely sees them, soul four and physical health five, which he circles to work on, and mission and money nine. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ Ali says the wheel of life takes 30 seconds and can be done whenever life feels misaligned, directionless, burnt out or stressed. — 00:04:51
  • ★★ Rating yourself on the wheel of life is not for beating yourself up, Ali says, but a pure inventory of where you are in each area of life. — 00:04:51

00:05:20 — Why his money score is high; sponsor read for Trading 212

  • ★★ Ali rates his money nine out of 10 because he has run his business for over seven years and invested his money throughout that time. — 00:05:20
  • ★★ Ali cites studies showing that people who set goals perform better, are more productive and feel happier with life than people who do not. — 00:06:48

00:07:06 — Method two: the 12 month celebration

  • ★★★ Ali's preferred goal-setting method is the 12-month celebration: in each important area of life ask what you would like to be celebrating 12 months from now, imagining dinner with a friend who holds you accountable. — 00:07:17
  • ★★ Ali cites studies showing that people who write their goals down are more likely to achieve them than people who do not write them down or have no goals. — 00:07:17
  • ★★ Ali recommends doing the 12-month celebration for all 10 areas of life rather than only the three circled, especially at the start of the year as part of annual planning. — 00:07:17
  • ★★ For physical health Ali lists candidate celebrations: having packed on muscle, getting leaner, working out consistently three times a week. — 00:08:07
  • ★★★ Ali advises boiling each area's 12-month celebration down to a single goal: if you could celebrate only one thing, what would it be? — 00:08:37
  • ★★ A single goal helps the brain focus and moves habits in one direction, Ali says, while chasing several goals at once becomes overwhelming and complicated very quickly. — 00:09:06
  • ★★★ Ali's one physical-health goal is to reduce his visceral abdominal fat: recent DEXA scans showed quite a lot of fat around his belly, which he puts down to poor genetics and diet. — 00:09:34
  • ★★ Ali says visceral adipose tissue correlates with negative health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and stroke. — 00:09:34

  • ★★★ Ali adds "while enjoying every step along the way" to the end of every goal he sets, a trick from his friend Dickie Bush, a fellow internet entrepreneur. — 00:10:04

    “add a few words to the end of that goal, which is... while enjoying every step along the way.”

  • ★★ Adding "while enjoying every step along the way" turns a goal Ali would grind towards into something lighter and more adventurous, in the feel-good productivity way. — 00:10:04 · feel-good productivity (concept), Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ Ali keeps his goals for each area of life in a Google Doc with his CEO coach, Eric; every quarter they decide what tangible progress to make in the next 90 days. — 00:10:54
  • ★★ Goals kept only in your head and never looked at again get forgotten, Ali says, and this is a big part of why people struggle with New Year's resolutions. — 00:10:54
  • ★★★ Ali recommends writing each goal down somewhere easy to revisit, such as a Google Doc bookmarked on the Chrome bookmark bar. — 00:11:23
  • ★★ As an optional extra, Ali advises asking why each 12-month celebration matters to you and writing the why in the same document as the goals. — 00:11:52
  • ★★ Ali's written why for cutting visceral fat: it is the major thing that would lead to him dying early of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease; building muscle is mostly vanity. — 00:12:20

00:12:43 — Method three: the ideal week method

  • ★★ Ali says he has a whole course coming out soon on his feel-good productivity system. — 00:12:43 · feel-good productivity (concept), Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★★ Ali calls the ideal week method one of his most game-changing time-management techniques: open a blank Google Calendar called your ideal week and first block the essentials, such as waking and sleeping times. — 00:13:13
  • ★★★ In the ideal week Ali finds time every week to take action on each 12-month celebration goal. — 00:13:42
  • ★★ If the 12-month celebration is seeing friends for a group dinner at least once a week, Ali says the ideal week calendar needs a weekly block for that dinner. — 00:13:42
  • ★★ For his goal of becoming leaner, Ali needs half an hour a day of exercise blocked into his ideal week. — 00:14:11
  • ★★★ If the ideal week has no time for a goal because other areas of life keep you busy, Ali says that is fine: change the 12-month celebration to fit the time you have. — 00:14:11
  • ★★ A big thing that derails people, Ali says, is perfectionism and trying to do too much: setting goal after goal, then finding no time in the calendar because of a job, children or a commute. — 00:14:40
  • ★★★ What Ali loves about the ideal week method is that it forces clarity on what is actually important, the time needed for what you have to do and the time left for what you want to do. — 00:14:40
  • ★★ Ali says you can do fewer things and cross some goals off your 12-month celebration list, working on them next year (2024) or when more time frees up. — 00:15:10
  • ★★ Ali's live, free online workshop on 6 January 2024 will take a few hours over Zoom, doing the wheel of life, 12-month celebration and ideal week exercises live to plan 2024. — 00:15:10 · Zoom

00:15:20 — Live annual planning workshop for book pre-orders; Trident method video; sign-off

  • ★★ Ali's 6 January 2024 workshop is only for people who have pre-ordered Feel-Good Productivity: they send in their receipt to get a ticket. — 00:15:39 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked what Ali wears on his right hand in the video, the channel answers that it is a Whoop band. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 12-month celebration · Trident calendar system · wheel of life

Also: People: Dickie Bush · Eric Partaker

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book)

Concepts: cardiovascular disease · DEXA scan · feel-good productivity (concept) · Mental health

Products: Google Calendar · Google Docs · Zoom

Only in the description or credits: Whoop

Also centred on Trident calendar system: How I Manage My Time - The Trident Calendar System · I spent $50,000 on a business coach so you don’t have to · 8 Simple Habits That Save Me 20+ Hours a Week

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