How I Organize My Life - The 'LAZI' Productivity System
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If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm
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How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78
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How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y
My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4
My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty
My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78
My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2
If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm
The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y
How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6
How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42
How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm
Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252
How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8
How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78
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00:00All right, so for some reason,
00:01people on the internet seem to think
00:02that I'm some kind of productivity guru.
00:04I literally have no idea why.
00:05157 words per minute.
00:07There we go, world record.
00:08Because even though I give the impression
00:10that I do lots of things,
00:11I am quite lazy and a bit of a waste man at heart.
00:13And so in this video,
00:14I'm gonna take you behind the scenes
00:16of my lazy productivity system, patent pending.
00:18And this is a system that I use
00:19to juggle all the things that I do,
00:20like being a doctor, a YouTuber, an entrepreneur,
00:22a podcaster, and a D-list celebrity.
00:24Let's start with the first component,
00:25and that is L standing for Lash.
00:27Now, Lash is basically how I view my calendar.
00:31My calendar is my lash.
00:33It basically is the whip, the lash,
00:35that tells me what I'm doing
00:36on any given moment of any given day.
00:38Honestly, I think most productivity systems in the world
00:40by effective people just boil down
00:42to using a calendar properly.
00:44So if you're struggling with your productivity
00:46for whatever reason,
00:47and you're not using your calendar to organize your life,
00:49you're probably doing it wrong.
00:50And if you start using a calendar,
00:52things will just go better.
00:53There's basically three main ways
00:54in which I use a calendar
00:55that I think you should use a calendar as well.
00:56The first one is time blocking.
00:58If I have to do something, if I want to do something,
01:00I put a block in my calendar when I'm gonna do the thing.
01:03For example, right now there's a block in my calendar
01:05for filming this video.
01:05Later on in the day, I'm going out to dinner
01:07with some friends,
01:08so there's a block in the calendar for that.
01:09Obviously, there's blocks in the calendar
01:10for any time I have a phone call,
01:11and sometimes I even block in relaxation time
01:13on the calendar just to remind me to actually do it.
01:15The second way in which I use a calendar
01:17is that I live my life based on calendar invites.
01:19If a friend is inviting me to do something,
01:21then I have to create a calendar event for it
01:23and send them an email invite, which they're gonna accept,
01:26because ultimately, if something is not in my calendar,
01:27it's just not gonna happen.
01:28And finally, third main reason for using a calendar
01:30is that you can then set out protected blocks of time
01:34for deep work activities.
01:35So for me, every morning between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.,
01:39I have a protected block of time for writing my book.
01:41And that's great because in the morning,
01:42that's when my creative juices are flowing more regularly,
01:45and if I don't have that blocked off in my calendar,
01:47other random ass pointless things
01:48are gonna end up taking up that time.
01:50And right now for me,
01:51writing the book is the most important thing
01:52I could be doing with my time,
01:53therefore it's protected in the mornings.
01:54If you're wondering about apps,
01:56the one I prefer to use on iOS devices
01:57is called Fantastical.
01:58It's a bit expensive,
01:59but Google Calendar is a very good free alternative.
02:02So if you're not using a calendar,
02:04I think that's by far the most important part
02:05of any productivity system, and that is the Lash.
02:08All right, next part of the lazy productivity system
02:10is A, which stands for agenda.
02:12Now this basically means a to-do list,
02:14but the way I approach to-do lists
02:16is different to how a lot of people do it.
02:18And that's because I'm a lazy waste man,
02:19and therefore I don't really like it
02:20when I have a list of things that I have to do,
02:23because then I feel like I'm beholden to my to-do list,
02:26and it's just not nice,
02:26and then it makes ticking off tasks on my list
02:29feel as if I've got a boss,
02:30and I have this really deep desire
02:31to never have a boss in my life.
02:33Therefore, I don't really like the traditional way
02:34of managing a to-do list.
02:36And so instead, for me, the way that I do it
02:37is that instead of a to-do list,
02:39I have a might-to-do list.
02:41And a might-to-do list is just that.
02:42I do have things written down,
02:43but they're not things I have to do,
02:45they're things that I can do if I really want to.
02:46And just that slight distinction
02:48makes me feel like I'm the boss, I'm in control,
02:50rather than that my to-do list is in control of me.
02:52Now, with my to-do list,
02:53there is one important thing that I do every day,
02:55and that is the only thing that I absolutely have to do,
02:57and that is called my daily highlight.
02:59So every single day,
03:00I will define what is the one most important thing
03:02I have to do today,
03:03and that will go at the very top of my to-do list.
03:05And then everything else on my to-do list
03:06is just things that I could do if I really wanted to,
03:08and sometimes I do lots of them,
03:10and sometimes I do none of them,
03:11but it's all good,
03:12because the only thing I have to do is my daily highlight.
03:14If you're wondering,
03:15I actually prefer to use paper for most of my to-do lists,
03:17and this is the Analog System by Ugmonk.
03:20It's a bit overpriced, but it really is very nice.
03:23You get this little like wooden thing,
03:24and when you have your to-do list,
03:26you can like put it in front of you on paper,
03:29so you can see it every day,
03:30and it's a little bit excessively priced,
03:31but hey, if you're a sucker
03:33for well-designed aesthetic productivity things like me,
03:36this is really, really good.
03:37I'll put a link in the video description,
03:39an affiliate link,
03:39if you wanna check it out with a bit of a discount.
03:41All right, so we talked about the LASH and the AGENDA.
03:43Let's move on to ZED, which stands for Zettelkasten.
03:45Zettelkasten is German for slipbox,
03:47and this is a note-taking and knowledge management system
03:51that's popularized by a chap called Luhmann,
03:52and Luhmann was particularly famous
03:53because he was like super, super productive.
03:55He wrote 70 books and over 400 articles
03:58over the course of his life.
03:59He had around 90,000 notes
04:01within his Zettelkasten slipbox system,
04:03which I think this was like the 1800s or something.
04:05He did it on like slips of actual paper index cards,
04:08but the way that I use the Zettelkasten method
04:09is updated for the 21st century,
04:11and I use an app called Roam Research
04:13for my personal note-taking stuff.
04:15Yes, I still use Notion,
04:17but that's mostly for team-related things
04:18and for keeping track of projects,
04:19whereas Roam is my personal note-taking app,
04:22and there's a lot of detail to go into
04:23with the Zettelkasten system,
04:24which I will do at some other point,
04:25but basically it's like any time I consume something,
04:28if I read a book or an article or listen to a podcast,
04:31I will do my best to write down a few notes
04:33about the thing that I've just read in my own words
04:36in a series of Zettels.
04:37That's all a bit complicated.
04:38It's not really part of the productivity system as such,
04:41but there is one thing that I do within Roam Research,
04:43within my note-taking app every single morning,
04:45and that's something that I call the morning dump,
04:47and the idea behind the morning dump
04:48is that every day I will start a new note in Roam,
04:51and I will just write down whatever is on my mind.
04:53This is kind of similar to another exercise for creativity
04:55called morning pages,
04:57and the idea behind morning pages
04:58is that every morning you sit down
05:00and you write three handwritten pages
05:02just of free writing, exploring whatever your thoughts are,
05:05but again, because I'm a bit of a waste man,
05:06I can't be bothered to actually sit down
05:08and write three pages by hand,
05:09and so the morning dump is a more permissive version
05:11of morning pages where the idea is,
05:13look, I just need to write down whatever is on my mind.
05:16I'm going to dump my brain out onto this page
05:19or onto this window in the app,
05:20and that's genuinely quite helpful for me
05:21because usually I find that there's random stuff
05:23that's just been building up in my brain.
05:25Often there's things that I need to do
05:26or that I might want to do
05:28or appointments in my calendar
05:29or people I need to reply to,
05:30and so generally, as I'm doing my morning dump,
05:33I realise, oh, I should do this and this and this,
05:35or I might want to do that,
05:36and then I will write it on my physical to-do list
05:38because then it's part of the agenda.
05:41The other cool thing about using Roam
05:42is that I can automatically synchronise
05:44all of my highlights from Kindle, predominantly,
05:46but also from Air Audio Podcast
05:48and also from Instapaper when I read articles,
05:50and that all synchronises straight to Roam
05:52using an app called Readwise,
05:53and there's more details about that
05:54in a video up there somewhere
05:56called The Five Magical Apps That Changed My Life.
05:58Now, the problem with Roam
05:59is that it's a little bit complicated to use,
06:00and I have so many other ways in which I use it.
06:03It's a bit too much to go into in a YouTube video,
06:04but I have all of those videos available on Nebula.
06:07If you haven't heard,
06:08Nebula is an independent streaming platform
06:09that's built by me and a bunch of other creators
06:11that you might be familiar with,
06:12and Nebula is a good place for us
06:14to be able to put content like an in-depth tutorial series
06:16about exactly how I use Roam
06:18without worrying about it being too niche
06:21for the YouTube algorithm.
06:22In fact, a few months ago,
06:23I even taught a weekend online course
06:24where I taught 100 and something people
06:26how to use Roam research
06:27over the course of two or three hours.
06:29All the proceeds from that
06:29went to the Against Malaria Foundation,
06:31so we ended up raising about $8,000 for it,
06:33but if you couldn't attend that live session
06:34a few months ago,
06:35you'll find the recording of it over at Nebula again.
06:37But Ali, how do I sign up to Nebula?
06:39Well, I'm really glad you asked
06:40because the best way to sign up to Nebula
06:41is to actually make an account with CuriosityStream
06:43who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
06:45CuriosityStream is the world's leading
06:46documentary streaming subscription platform,
06:48and on CuriosityStream,
06:49they've got thousands of really high quality,
06:51high budget titles that you can choose from.
06:52One series in particular that I've enjoyed
06:54is called The Human Limit,
06:55which is a series of four really interesting episodes
06:57that explores the limits of human performance
06:59and super brains and the power of the human mind
07:01and how we can adapt to all these interesting conditions.
07:03And the really cool thing about CuriosityStream
07:05is that they love supporting independent creators,
07:07and so we've got a bundle deal with CuriosityStream,
07:10which is that if you sign up
07:10to a one-year subscription of CuriosityStream,
07:12which is less than $15 for the whole year,
07:16you get free access to Nebula bundled with that.
07:17So for less than $15 a year,
07:19you get thousands of high quality, high budget documentaries,
07:21and you also get all of my original stuff on Nebula
07:23along with originals from a load of my other creative friends
07:26like Tom Scott and Legal Eagle and Lindsay Ellis
07:28and Wendover Productions and Thomas Frank.
07:30If that sounds up your street,
07:31then head over to curiositystream.com forward slash Ali,
07:33and then when you sign up to an account with CuriosityStream,
07:35you'll get your Nebula details emailed to you,
07:37and then you can watch my entire workflow series
07:39where I tell you how I use Roam, how I use Notion,
07:41how I use all these apps to combine
07:44to build this lazy productivity system.
07:45And the final component of the lazy productivity system
07:48is I, which stands for inventory.
07:50Inventory basically means file management and archive.
07:54So in terms of file management,
07:55I use Google Drive for absolutely everything.
07:57My entire life is on Google Drive,
07:58and I almost never store anything on my actual Mac
08:01in terms of physical files anymore.
08:03And so that means that whatever device I'm using,
08:05whether I'm using a MacBook or my Mac mini,
08:06or if I'm on a friend's laptop, or if I'm on my iPad,
08:09or even if I'm on this Microsoft Surface laptop
08:11that I've been trying recently,
08:12whichever device I'm on,
08:13I always have a way to access my files on Google Drive.
08:15So if you're currently not using a file backup system
08:18like Google Drive, or OneDrive, or Dropbox,
08:19or iCloud Drive, you probably should be using something.
08:22I've tried all of them,
08:23and Google Drive is the one that I prefer.
08:24The other element of my inventory system
08:26is actually Evernote.
08:27Now, Evernote is a bit of an old-fashioned app.
08:29It's sort of like the Microsoft of apps,
08:31and people are like, well, why would you use Evernote?
08:33It's really old.
08:34But Evernote is still really good
08:35for using as a sort of archive system
08:38where anytime I get a letter,
08:39anytime I get anything I need to save,
08:41I just chuck it straight into Evernote
08:43because I know that whatever happens,
08:45come hell or high water, I think is the phrase,
08:48whatever happens, Evernote will be there for my files.
08:50And so right now, I'm in the process
08:51of applying for mortgages for various things
08:53and having to get bank statements, and tax returns,
08:55and company house documents.
08:57And I'm just really glad that I've been taking photos
08:58of these for the last 10 years of my life
09:00and just chucking them into Evernote
09:01because they've got a really good
09:03optical character recognition search function.
09:06So I can literally type in corporation tax,
09:08and it will find all of the letters I've ever received
09:10about corporation tax
09:11because they're all somewhere in the Evernote thing.
09:13And the really nice thing about Evernote
09:14is that I actually don't need to worry
09:15about categorization or organization.
09:17Again, I'm a bit of a waste man, I'm quite lazy.
09:19I don't like the idea of having to put something
09:22in a folder, I just love the idea
09:23of being able to snap a photo of it,
09:25chuck it into Evernote wherever I want.
09:26And I know that using the search function,
09:28it's gonna be there for me when I need it.
09:29So that was the lazy productivity system,
09:31the Lash, the Agenda, the Zettelkasten, and the inventory.
09:34If you're interested in more ways for being productive,
09:36you might like to check out this video over here,
09:38which is 10 top tips for time management.
09:41And these tips interact with my lazy system.
09:44So you've got the tips from there,
09:45you've got the apps from here,
09:46and then you too will be a productivity grease monkey.
09:48So thank you so much for watching,
09:49and hopefully I'll see you in the next video.
09:51Bye bye.