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How to Stop Wasting Your Life (Avoid These 5 Things)

2024-02-16 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:09 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: His medical past, His own numbers, Sponsor segment present

In the second part of his three-part series on managing time outside a nine-to-five job, Ali names five time drains to cut (social media, the news, TV, chores and squandered spare minutes) and offers each fix as an experiment: OneSec and friction against scrolling, news only when chosen, no TV on his own, a paid cleaner, and using 17-minute gaps.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — The second part of the series: five time drains, and why time management mattered to him

  • ★★★ Ali says that cutting out five big time drains, or at least reducing their hold on you, will free up hours every week for whatever is most meaningful to you. — 00:00:00 · time management
  • ★★ Ali says that while working full-time as a doctor he built his YouTube channel to over a million subscribers; he also built a business to about a million dollars in revenue, reached financial freedom, and wrote a book while running the business. — 00:00:29 · YouTube, work optional, Feel-Good Productivity (book)

00:00:51 — Time drain one: social media

  • ★★ Intentional social media use is fine, Ali says, but for most people, himself included in the past and still a little today, it is not that intentional. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Ali says social media companies pay hundreds, if not thousands, of engineers to hijack our attention, so that we feel we must constantly check TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. — 00:00:58 · TikTok, Instagram, Twitter
  • ★ Because social media platforms are now algorithmic rather than chronological, Ali says, you will never be up to date with the feed. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ To break his social media addiction Ali installed OneSec, a free app that adds a five-second loading screen to social media apps and offers apps he chose instead, Kindle and Audible. — 00:01:42 · Twitter, Kindle, Audible
  • ★★ The five-second wait of OneSec broke Ali's cycle of scrolling: it made him ask whether he really wanted to open Twitter, and most of the time he chose not to. — 00:02:09 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Ali removed all social media apps from his iPhone home screens: to open Instagram he must swipe down and type its name, a level of friction his fingers have no muscle memory for. — 00:02:09 · iPhone, Instagram, friction
  • ★★ Ali recommends screen time limits on phones and the app Opal, which a few of his friends have found valuable because it physically stops you from opening social media apps. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ Ali thinks social media companies have run a massive psyop that has convinced us we need to scroll social media in order to relax. — 00:02:47
  • ★★ Ali says he has never seen a study showing TikTok to be anything other than a stimulant that reduces sleep quality: humans did not evolve to relax by scrolling for a dopamine hit, and there are ways to relax that actually relax. — 00:03:10 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Ali advises treating his tips, like everything on his channel, as experiments to try in your own life, such as deleting all social apps or installing OneSec: some will work for you and some will not. — 00:03:10 · experimental mindset

00:03:52 — Sponsor read for Brilliant

00:05:28 — Time drain two: the news

  • ★★ Ali says you will be at least vaguely informed of anything really big anyway, while for most things the news cycle is designed for entertainment, clicks and views rather than informing us. — 00:05:29
  • ★★★ Ali says reading the news should be intentional rather than reactive or a default: when he feels like it he opens The Economist, or he holds a session to look up one big story he wants to know more about. — 00:05:29
  • ★★ Ali has stopped habitually checking the news every day, which used to waste so much of his time. — 00:05:59

00:06:04 — Plug for the free seven-day focus course

00:06:38 — Time drain three: TV

  • ★★★ Asked how he found time to build a business and become financially free while working full-time, Ali says that since his first year of medical school he has kept a rule that he is not allowed to watch TV on his own. — 00:06:51
  • ★★ In high school Ali watched about three hours of TV every day, and he is amazed how much time he squandered when he was younger. — 00:06:51
  • ★★ In his first year at university Ali tried not watching TV on his own as an experiment, checking every few months whether he missed it; he did not, and used the time to learn Japanese, build websites, see friends and do flashcards. — 00:07:38 · experimental mindset
  • ★★ Ali hosted weekly Game of Thrones social nights in his room while the show was on; he says it was about the one TV show he watched in the last ten years. — 00:07:38 · Game of Thrones
  • ★★★ Ali says not watching TV on his own is the single rule that has freed up by far the most time of anything he has done, and suggests trying it as an experiment. — 00:08:20
  • ★★★ Chores such as cooking, cleaning, laundry and admin are worth keeping if you enjoy them, Ali says; he enjoys none of them and saw that most could be deleted, automated or delegated. — 00:08:20 · money buys back time

00:08:27 — Time drain four: chores

  • ★★ As a doctor able to do locum shifts, Ali worked out that his hourly rate was 40 pounds, while cleaning, which he does not enjoy, took him two hours a week. — 00:09:04
  • ★★★ Ali hired a cleaner who came every two weeks to clean for two hours, for about 30 pounds a visit: for 60 pounds a month his house was clean by default. (hedged) — 00:09:25 · money buys back time
  • ★★ Ali says that with the cleaner he traded an hour and a half of work he enjoyed for four hours of not cleaning, done by someone much better at it, while also contributing to the economy. — 00:09:25
  • ★ Delegating chores was much harder for Ali as a student making no money, and he says that if your hourly rate is zero it is very hard to delegate them. — 00:09:47
  • ★★★ Ali says money and time are interchangeable and money can buy back time, so time management becomes not only discipline or time-blocking but deploying your resources, such as a job's income, to buy back time. — 00:09:47 · money buys back time, time management
  • ★★ Buying back time trades a less valuable resource, money, for a more valuable one, time, Ali says: we can never get back time we have used, but we can always make more money later. — 00:10:16
  • ★★ Ali suggests asking how much two hours freed from cleaning are worth to you: time with your kids, a walk in nature, reading a book or progress on a hobby. — 00:10:16
  • ★★★ Ali suggests trying a cleaner once or twice as an experiment: if it works, amazing, and if not, you have at least gained data. — 00:10:43 · experimental mindset
  • ★★★ Ali's fifth time drain is squandering spare minutes, an idea from Matthew Dicks's Someday Is Today, which he calls an amazing read on time management: with 17 minutes before a call it is easy to think nothing can get done. — 00:10:43 · time management

00:10:58 — Time drain five: squandering the spare minutes

  • ★★★ Squandering spare minutes is the time drain Ali struggles with most today: with 17 minutes free he watches a YouTube video or goes on Amazon or WhatsApp, in a limbo of doing nothing. (hedged) — 00:11:26 · YouTube, Amazon, WhatsApp
  • ★★★ As a doctor, Ali used 17 minutes between patients or waiting for a blood result or scan to type in Notion or plan his next YouTube video on his iPad; since leaving his nine-to-five he devalues those minutes. — 00:11:51 · Notion, iPad, YouTube
  • ★★ Ali is trying to recognise that every minute counts: 17 minutes is quite a lot of time to make progress on something meaningful, and the key is to be intentional with those little bits of time. — 00:11:51
  • ★★ Ali is all for using spare minutes to relax intentionally, rather than pottering around doing random stuff. — 00:12:34

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): To a viewer who wants to start writing online to find a voice and build an audience, the channel recommends Twitter, LinkedIn or Medium. — creator comment · Twitter, LinkedIn
  • ★ Asked for a video on time and life management for high-school students, Ali replies that he already has one and links to it. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: money buys back time · OneSec · time management

Also: People: Matthew Dicks

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Game of Thrones · Someday Is Today

Organizations: Amazon · Instagram · The Economist · TikTok · Twitter · YouTube

Concepts: dopamine · experimental mindset · friction · work optional

Products: Audible · iPad · iPhone · Kindle · Notion · Opal · WhatsApp

Only in the description or credits: LinkedIn · Medium

Also centred on OneSec: This free app saves me 21 hours every month #shorts

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