My Toxic Relationship With Productivity - Ali Abdaal - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.

00:01This is gonna be a bit of a chit-chat rambly video

00:03where I talk about my feelings with a cup of chamomile tea.

00:07So if you wanna grab a tea, we can have a bit of a chat.

00:09And I wanna talk about my toxic relationship

00:12with productivity.

00:13This is something I very recently realized

00:16and it was a real shock to me as well

00:18as I'm sure it is for you guys watching this

00:20if you've kind of been following the channel

00:22for any length of time.

00:23The way it happened was a few weeks ago,

00:25I started feeling like I was in this like real

00:28kind of productivity slump.

00:30In that, when it came to like filming videos

00:33for a period of about three weeks,

00:36every time I filmed a video,

00:37I just sort of, I really couldn't be bothered

00:39and I was just like,

00:40oh, do I really have to film this video?

00:41But because I have like, you know,

00:45hammered the mantra into my heart

00:47that consistency is like the most important thing in life

00:49and this fear when you're a YouTuber

00:52that all YouTubers have that, you know,

00:54I can't possibly take a break from YouTube

00:56because if I do,

00:57then the algorithm is gonna be mean to me

00:59and everyone's gonna stop following my channel

01:00and then my career is gonna go downhill

01:02and then I'm gonna have to end up being a doctor again.

01:04That thought process was on steroids basically

01:06for this period of three weeks

01:07and every time I filmed a video,

01:08it was like a real,

01:09yeah, it was like an uphill battle every time.

01:11And the way I usually approach this stuff,

01:13it's that like, you know,

01:15not everything has to be fun 100% of the time.

01:18There are times where we do have to push through

01:20and do stuff,

01:21but generally, the secret to my productivity

01:24for the last, I don't know, 15 years of my life

01:26has been that everything I do, I broadly enjoy

01:28and like 90% of it I enjoy

01:30and maybe if I have to push through the final 10%

01:32or usually the first 10% in terms of getting started,

01:34that's just the bit that takes a bit of pushing.

01:36But in this period of three weeks,

01:38it was like every aspect of these videos

01:40needed that like, you know, uphill push

01:42and it really wasn't a nice feeling to do something

01:44that I was actively not enjoying,

01:46but doing it because I felt like I had to

01:49because of the algorithm, for example.

01:50And then on top of not really enjoying

01:51filming videos anymore, which is unusual for me,

01:54I also had this like, in the mornings,

01:56I would often have like a call, a phone call

01:58or like an art lesson or a workout scheduled

02:00at like nine or 10 o'clock in the morning

02:02and I'd sort of wake up bleary eyed, you know,

02:04I'd set my alarm for 8.30 and then I'd kind of sleep again

02:07and then like three minutes before the call,

02:08I'd wake up, I'd hop on the call,

02:10I'd like, you know, pretend to be bright and alert

02:13and like awake and stuff,

02:14but I had this like seething resentment inside of me

02:16that, oh, why do I have to, you know?

02:17It's weird in a way because it's not like anyone

02:20was forcing me to do this.

02:21I am completely in control of my own schedule

02:23and I had chosen to book in art lessons and workouts

02:27and these phone calls and chats about my book

02:29and team meetings, all this stuff in the mornings,

02:31thinking, you know, a few weeks prior that,

02:33oh, this will be good, this will get me out of bed.

02:35And then when it came to that,

02:36it was this feeling of like, like hating my former self

02:39for booking in these things in the morning.

02:42And again, that's unusual

02:43because I've like never really had that feeling before.

02:45And then after a few days of this,

02:46I'd also do that thing,

02:48which apparently there's a word for it.

02:50It's called revenge bedtime procrastination,

02:52where this thing that we have where you're like,

02:55you know it's past your bedtime,

02:57but you don't wanna go to bed

02:59and you just like continue to procrastinate.

03:01And so I was like spending tons of time

03:02just scrolling through Instagram and Twitter

03:04just for absolutely no reason until one o'clock, two o'clock,

03:07sometimes even three o'clock in the morning.

03:08And later, my housemate, Sheen, told me

03:09that this is called revenge bedtime procrastination,

03:12which is a phenomenon whereby you feel like

03:15you don't have control over the rest of your day.

03:17And so the only bit of your day

03:18that you do have control over, i.e. nighttime,

03:20that's when your brain suddenly decides,

03:21you know, I'm the boss.

03:22I'm not gonna go to bed.

03:23And you end up screwing yourself for the next day.

03:25And then the final piece of the quartet, as it were,

03:27was this like, every day I would have this chronic feeling

03:30of dissatisfaction at the end of the day,

03:32being like, oh, I didn't do enough today.

03:34I woke up too late, or that meeting wasn't productive enough

03:38or I only filmed one video

03:40when I should have filmed three videos

03:41and I should have shot eight thumbnails

03:42and I should have done four videos for my course,

03:44but I ended up only doing one thing.

03:45And I'm not really a stranger

03:46to this feeling of dissatisfaction.

03:48This is often how I feel,

03:50but it's like, I don't,

03:51it's rare for me to feel it multiple days in a row.

03:54And there was this period of two or three weeks

03:56where it was just sort of stacking up.

03:58I sort of feel like that time passed in a bit of a haze

04:01and that I don't really remember

04:03what I actually did in those days.

04:05I look back on my calendar from a few weeks ago

04:08in that period of three weeks and I just think,

04:10damn, I just don't remember any of this.

04:11I just don't really remember it happening.

04:13And that is also a little bit of a scary feeling.

04:15And so all of this stuff,

04:17maybe it's burnout.

04:18I've never really experienced burnout before.

04:20I don't really know what that's supposed to mean,

04:21but maybe that's what that feeling is like

04:23where you feel like you just can't be bothered

04:25to do anything and like the work

04:26that you're having to doing is like a real struggle.

04:29Maybe that's what burnout is.

04:30But I was like psychoanalyzing myself earlier

04:34and I came up with a few different reasons

04:36as to why this was happening.

04:38And then once I discovered the reasons

04:39behind why it was happening,

04:40I found some solutions to it.

04:41So let's talk about those.

04:42And the biggest reason is outcome dependence.

04:46I was fixated to certain outcomes

04:49that were outside of my control.

04:50Now, this is normally something

04:52that I very much rail against.

04:54I don't believe in setting output goals.

04:57I.e., I don't believe in,

04:58like if I make a video,

04:59I don't believe in the concept

05:01of having a kind of view count.

05:03Like, oh, I really want this video

05:04to hit this many views

05:05or I really wanna hit this many subscribers

05:07because that's just dumb

05:08because that stuff is outside of my control.

05:09In almost every aspect of my life,

05:11I set input goals instead.

05:12Like I'm just gonna make two videos a week

05:14because that's entirely within my control

05:15and my team's control.

05:16But a few weeks ago,

05:17I think it was like right about the start of January,

05:20January, 2021,

05:21we dropped down from three videos a week

05:22to two videos a week.

05:24And because of that drop down,

05:25I was thinking, oh, okay, cool.

05:26So now we're doing fewer videos.

05:28Therefore, all of these videos

05:30need to be absolute bangers.

05:31And I kind of had that in my mind

05:32that I want every video to be a banger.

05:34And on YouTube,

05:34when you want every video to be a banger,

05:36like there is only so far

05:39that particular thought process can go

05:41because maybe you get a banger

05:42and you're lucky

05:43or maybe you get another banger

05:44and you're lucky.

05:45And then you get a video

05:46as YouTube studio shows you,

05:47which is like 10 out of 10 on the analytics.

05:4910 out of 10,

05:50meaning that in your previous 10 videos,

05:52it's the 10th worst performer.

05:54And so that's a real feeling of like,

05:56oh my God.

05:57And basically every YouTuber I've ever spoken to

05:58has this feeling

05:59when they see a 10 out of 10 on YouTube studio

06:02being like, oh my God,

06:03my life is over.

06:04Like, what's the point?

06:04My YouTube channel is going down the drain.

06:06I think it was because for some reason

06:07I set this intention in my head

06:08that, hey, I wanna make banger videos every time.

06:10And that intention made me fixated

06:13on the outcome of the video.

06:14Like how well is the video performing?

06:15So then I was becoming like obsessed

06:17with the YouTube analytics

06:18and thinking, oh my God,

06:19this video has only got a thumbnail click-through rate

06:20of like 9.8%.

06:21We need to get it up to 13%.

06:23Let's change the thumbnails.

06:24Let's go and shoot a load of thumbnails.

06:25And essentially this loop

06:26of trying to optimise the numbers.

06:29Whereas for the last like three and a half years on YouTube,

06:31I have broadly not really cared about the numbers.

06:33Like I couldn't care less

06:34once a video comes out how it performs.

06:36Generally, I try and operate like that.

06:38And so that outcome dependence

06:39on the YouTube channel was one thing.

06:41And then like alongside,

06:43I had a lot of outcome dependence

06:45on sort of writing the book that I'm working on.

06:47And I actually have this book here

06:48by a draft number four, John McPhee

06:50on the writing process,

06:51which is helping me learn how to write.

06:52But I'll put a video up there

06:54that talks about how I feel I've wasted

06:56the last six months of my life

06:57in terms of writing the book.

06:59And that stuff was happening around the same time

07:01whereby, you know, just for a bit of background,

07:03I've got a book deal and I'm writing a book.

07:05There's sort of two goals

07:06that I could have when writing the book.

07:07One of them is I wanna write the best book I can.

07:10And I wanna write something I'm proud of,

07:11which is very much an input goal,

07:12which is very much up my street

07:13and the sort of goal that I normally have.

07:14But then there's the external goal,

07:16which is that I really want this book

07:17to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

07:19And it's such a dumb, stupid, arbitrary goal to have

07:21because it's completely outside of my control.

07:23And it's just stupid.

07:26But for some reason, I kind of fixated on that

07:29as a goal that I wanted to reach for.

07:31And so when I was writing the book,

07:32anytime I'd write something, I'd be thinking,

07:33oh my God, this is total junk.

07:35This is not very good.

07:36And I sort of be hating myself

07:37as I was trying to write,

07:38knowing that my work wasn't very good at all.

07:40And really overall, that entire problem

07:42was just around setting outcome goals

07:44rather than input goals.

07:46The second cause of this kind of toxic relationship

07:48with productivity that I discovered

07:50is that I often do this,

07:51is like I don't pay enough attention to my emotional state.

07:54And what I mean by that is that

07:56often if I don't feel like doing something,

07:59I will do it anyway and like push through the pain

08:01and like, you know, I'm gonna do it anyway.

08:03Especially when it comes to making videos,

08:05like, you know, I think we've put out like 350 videos

08:08or something on this channel so far.

08:09It's been on average two point something videos a week

08:11since June of 2017.

08:14And to get to that level of consistency,

08:15well, hopefully keeping the quality up,

08:17to get to that level of consistency,

08:19it's not like every time I sit down to film a video,

08:22I'm like, ooh, I'm really looking forward

08:23to filming this video.

08:24In fact, for the most part,

08:26I have to kind of force myself to get started.

08:28And then once I get started with filming,

08:30it's actually quite fun

08:31because I love the sound of my own voice

08:32and it's quite fun talking to a camera in a way.

08:34But I think there's a sweet spot

08:36when it comes to this thing.

08:38If you're a complete waste man

08:40and you spend your entire life playing World of Warcraft,

08:43for example, more on that later.

08:44If you're a complete waste man,

08:45then there is a level at which you have to tell yourself,

08:48I am gonna do something even if I don't feel like it.

08:51I'm gonna get off the sofa,

08:52get off my chair playing World of Warcraft

08:53and I'm gonna go for a run even if I don't feel like it.

08:57I'm gonna study for my exams even if I don't feel like it.

08:59I'm gonna ignore my emotional state

09:01which wants me to just sit and play World of Warcraft

09:03and I'm going to do the thing

09:05that is better for my long-term future.

09:07I'm gonna do the hard thing that I know I should do.

09:09And that, like if you're a total waste man,

09:11it makes sense that, you know,

09:12often you should disregard your emotional state

09:14because it's actively not serving you.

09:16But I think given that I'm broadly not a waste man,

09:20I think I probably swing too far in the opposite direction.

09:23And I have a lot of friends

09:24who are sort of traditionally high achievers

09:26who are also in this boat

09:28whereby we will often do things

09:30whether or not we feel like it

09:31because we know it's a good thing to do.

09:33But just sort of take that

09:34to the point of extremism almost

09:36where even if I've had like, you know,

09:38I'm in a bit of a slump and my emotional state

09:40is a bit like, oh, I'm not really feeling inspired to write

09:42or I'm not really feeling inspired to make a video,

09:44I'll think, you know what?

09:45No, you have to be a professional.

09:46And actually we've got a video coming out later this week

09:49or next week about overcoming procrastination

09:52that is all about like tackling this thing

09:54of the resistance that we have.

09:55But I think a big part of, at least for me,

09:57this kind of verge of burnout,

10:00if we wanna call it burnout,

10:01a big part of this was just ignoring my emotional state

10:04and pushing through and doing stuff

10:07even though I wasn't feeling like it.

10:09And obviously, you know, these are like two extremes

10:11and there is some kind of sweet spot

10:13which I'm trying to get closer to,

10:14which is something along the lines that,

10:16yes, there are some occasions

10:18in which we do have to force ourselves to do stuff,

10:20but it's also okay to take a break.

10:22This is a very roundabout way of saying

10:24it's okay to take a break sometimes.

10:26And if I am feeling like, you know,

10:28I don't feel like filming a video this evening,

10:30even if there's a sponsor video deadline coming up,

10:32I could just email the sponsor and be like,

10:33hey guys, wasn't really feeling it,

10:35wasn't really inspired,

10:36can we delay this video by a few days?

10:38And they're normally like, they're so nice.

10:39They'd be like, yeah, sure, take your time,

10:40do whatever you want.

10:41Basically, it's okay to take a break,

10:43but I think I had in my head

10:45that I had to be productive at all times,

10:47regardless of how I was feeling.

10:49And that I think contributed to this weird relationship

10:51that I have with productivity.

10:52And thirdly, I think a big contributor

10:54was just the fact that my calendar was way too busy.

10:56A few, I think a couple of months ago,

10:58I discovered Calendly,

10:59this app that lets you like send a link to someone

11:01and they can book a time on your calendar.

11:03And so anytime people would email me,

11:05like I get sort of hundreds of emails each day.

11:07And often there are some very interesting opportunities,

11:09people running startups,

11:10or people doing interesting YouTubers type things

11:13or creative things or just wanting to have a chat.

11:14And there was a period of a few weeks

11:16where I was very trigger happy with my Calendly link.

11:18I would just be like, if someone would be like,

11:19hey, can I pick your brain about X?

11:21I'd be like, you know what, this might be fun.

11:23Sure, here's a Calendly link,

11:24book a time wherever you want

11:25and I'll rock up on a Zoom call.

11:27Or if someone would email, be like,

11:28hey, I'm running the startup

11:29and I'd love to get your thoughts on something

11:30and maybe you can help marketing.

11:31I mean, sure, book a time on the calendar.

11:33And I ended up with like a ridiculously packed calendar

11:36where like every half an hour

11:38from like 9.30 in the morning until like 6 p.m. some days,

11:42I would just have a different Zoom call.

11:44And this would be sort of amongst sort of live sessions

11:48of my part-time YouTuber Academy,

11:49which has been running for the last six weeks.

11:50It would be alongside coaching sessions

11:53and workouts and art lessons.

11:54And there were so many days

11:55where I was like having lunch on a Zoom call,

11:58being like, look, I'm really sorry.

11:59I've been in back-to-back Zoom calls

12:01for the last five hours.

12:02I'm gonna stay in back-to-back Zoom calls

12:03for the next six hours.

12:04Do you mind if I eat on the Zoom call?

12:06My housemate, she would often be like,

12:07why the hell don't you take a break to eat dinner?

12:10Like, what's the point of you being on a Zoom call?

12:11Is that hour really gonna make a difference?

12:14But because I'd been so trigger happy with my Calendly link,

12:16I felt bad and cancelling on these people

12:18and just had a ridiculously packed calendar,

12:21which is good.

12:22Well, it feels very first-world problem-y,

12:24but I think given that book writing and YouTubing

12:28and most of the stuff I do on the internet

12:29is quite a creative art,

12:31I've realised that I probably do need

12:33a lot of time blocked out to actually make a video

12:36and to actually write something.

12:38Because in my head, I was thinking,

12:40well, if the video's 20 minutes long,

12:42it should only take half an hour to film

12:44because I'm a professional.

12:45I've been doing this for four years

12:46and so I can set the camera up.

12:48I've eliminated friction in my life.

12:49I can film in half an hour.

12:51And I just didn't take account of the fact

12:53that I am a wasteman sometimes when it comes to this stuff.

12:56And often, it takes me three hours

12:58to get into the mood to then film a video.

13:00I just didn't really count that.

13:02I sort of assumed that I was better

13:04at this productivity thing than I actually was.

13:06And that meant that I overbooked my calendar.

13:09I basically had no margin built into my schedule.

13:13Margin being sort of gaps, like empty gaps,

13:15where you can just sit down and think,

13:17or if something runs over, overruns,

13:19then you can fill it in the gap.

13:21Or if you wanna have lunch,

13:22you actually have a gap for that.

13:24And so all of these different things, I think,

13:27were what contributed to this overall feeling of like,

13:30you know, oh, I CBA, I can't be bothered

13:33to do any of this YouTube stuff.

13:35Can't be bothered with the book, it's too much effort.

13:36Oh, the goal is too hard, this is never gonna happen.

13:38I'm a terrible writer, I'm a terrible YouTuber.

13:40People are gonna unfollow me, blah, blah, blah.

13:41But thankfully, in the last couple of weeks,

13:43this has improved because having figured out

13:45what the problems were,

13:46I've now sort of actively started

13:48to address those problems.

13:50So firstly, I have made it a point

13:51to not set output goals, outcome goals, rather.

13:54And so even though in the back of my mind,

13:56I do really want this book

13:57to be a New York Times bestseller,

13:58that's anytime I have that thought,

14:00I try and squash it away and think instead,

14:02no, if I had to choose between that

14:04and writing a book I'm proud of and that I like,

14:06I would definitely choose writing a book

14:08that I'm proud of and that I like.

14:09And even for videos like this on YouTube,

14:11like you might've noticed past few weeks,

14:13I've been doing more of these sit down

14:15and have a chat with a cup of tea type videos.

14:17I really like doing these videos

14:18because I can just sort of speak from the heart.

14:19I can talk about my feelings.

14:21It feels like the camera is in a way a sort of therapist.

14:23And it's always nice reading the comments.

14:26And I actually prefer doing these sorts

14:27of sit down chatty videos than a very well produced,

14:31here are the 18 ways to be productive type video,

14:33which takes a lot of actual effort to put together

14:36and a lot of like mental effort to, you know,

14:38bring myself to sit down and make,

14:40which is why partly I've been doing more of these videos.

14:42And what I'm telling myself is,

14:44I actually don't really care how these perform.

14:45If people wanna watch them, they'll watch them.

14:47If they don't, they don't.

14:48People will find something to do with their time regardless.

14:50I don't need to be fixated on what that number is telling me

14:52on YouTube studio, on the YouTube analytics.

14:54Secondly, I now have a much emptier calendar,

14:56which is great.

14:57I have modified my calendar links

14:58and I have now like my assistant Elizabeth,

15:01who has her own YouTube channel, link below.

15:02Elizabeth keeps on telling me like,

15:04why the hell are you saying yes to so many people?

15:06Because I feel like I'm a chronic nice guy

15:09in that if someone emails me or messages me,

15:11or especially if like a friend intros me

15:13to someone else who they know and they ask for a meeting,

15:16I often just say yes to it.

15:18And it was this thing of saying yes to too many things

15:20and booking them in the calendar way too often.

15:22That meant the calendar was overloaded.

15:24So now I've changed my calendar link.

15:26So like no one is allowed to book meetings with me

15:28before two o'clock in the afternoon,

15:30which gives me the whole morning basically free

15:31to do creative stuff.

15:32And then an hour for lunch.

15:34And then I can have calls from like two till like 6 p.m.

15:37But I'm only allowed to have like two or three calls

15:39each day.

15:40And so it's like a system solution to a people problem.

15:44My people problem is that I'm too keen

15:45to say yes to things.

15:47But now the link itself does not let me overbook myself.

15:51And so if you've been emailing me

15:52in the last couple of weeks

15:53and you haven't had a response

15:54or haven't got a meeting arranged with me,

15:57apologies, but it had to be done.

15:59I was just trying to say yes to too many things.

16:01It's weird.

16:02Cause like when you start off doing stuff on the internet,

16:03you think like anytime you get a comment,

16:05anytime you get an email, you're like, oh my God,

16:06someone's like watching my stuff.

16:07Someone wants to talk to me.

16:08Hell yes, I'll give you like an hour of my time.

16:11But then as you become more and more famous,

16:15then you start getting way too much inbound

16:17and there are literally not enough hours in the day

16:19to actually be able to say yes

16:21to all the things you want to say yes to.

16:23And even if there were,

16:24it wouldn't make sense to use up kind of 18 hours

16:27of my working day to just have meetings with people.

16:30Because the reason people follow me in the first place

16:31is because I make the time to make videos.

16:33And without that like empty blocks of time in my calendar,

16:37I don't think I would be serving my long-term interests

16:40or overall the long-term interests of my audience,

16:42which feels a bit grandiose, but oh well.

16:44Thirdly, I have found that I'm trying to become

16:46a bit more aware of what my emotional state is

16:48at any given moment.

16:49I've spoken to a few friends who are sort of like me,

16:52i.e. weird productivity nerds.

16:54And they've said that getting a therapist

16:55has really, really helped

16:56because even though they don't have mental health issues

16:59per se, it's still helpful to be able to speak to someone

17:02that just encourages you and in a way forces you

17:05to actually address what your emotional state is

17:07around stuff.

17:08And so I'm trying to get more okay with asking myself,

17:10how do I feel right now?

17:12And therefore, do I really want to do this thing

17:16that I know I should do

17:16or should I just kind of give into my feelings

17:18but not viewing that as a bad thing?

17:20So still a work in progress.

17:22I wasn't really feeling like filming this video right now,

17:24but my housemate talked me into doing it

17:25and I'm kind of glad I'm doing it now

17:27because it's like most of these things,

17:28like most of the friction,

17:29most of the activation energy is just in getting started.

17:32And once you get started, it's actually quite fun.

17:33Fourthly, I've actually resumed playing World of Warcraft.

17:36I'm actually doing a 30-day challenge

17:39where I play video games for 30 days.

17:41So I won't say too much about that,

17:42but I've been streaming basically every day on Twitch.

17:45If you want to follow me, twitch.tv slash Ali Abdaal,

17:46that's been fun.

17:47And finally, the thing that I've realised

17:49that I really should get better at doing

17:51is that basically at the end of the day,

17:53I can just choose to be satisfied with what I've done.

17:56There was a great blog post that I read.

17:57My friend, Neil Nanda, who featured on our podcast once,

18:00I'll put a link to the video below.

18:01Yeah, he's got a great blog post that talks about this.

18:03Just that as productivity type people,

18:05like we always think, you know,

18:06you wake up in the morning thinking,

18:07oh, I didn't get enough sleep.

18:08And then, you know, you get back from work

18:10or from school or whatever

18:11and think, oh, I didn't perform well enough at work.

18:13And then, you do your side hustle.

18:14You're like, oh, I could have been more productive

18:15in the side hustle.

18:16If you have a family, you're like, oh, damn,

18:17I wasn't present enough with my kids or my housemate

18:19and all that kind of crap.

18:20And then, at the end of the day,

18:21you go to bed thinking, oh, my God,

18:22I've gone to bed too late

18:23and I'm gonna get not enough sleep.

18:24And then, the whole cycle is gonna continue.

18:26And a real big part of it

18:27is just in choosing to be satisfied with the thing.

18:30So what I realised I can do is at the end of the day,

18:33I could just think to myself, you know what?

18:35Today's been a good day of work.

18:36I could think that, or I could beat myself up.

18:38I could think, oh, my God,

18:39I've been so unproductive today.

18:40What is life?

18:40I'm such a waste man.

18:41But either way, it doesn't change the fact

18:43that I've done a certain amount of work.

18:44I filmed one video.

18:45I shot a thumbnail.

18:46I did a thing for my YouTuber Academy.

18:47The story I tell myself about it after the fact

18:50does not change the actual reality.

18:52All it does is make me feel bad about myself

18:54when I tell myself I'm a waste man

18:55and it's 10 p.m. but I haven't done enough work for the day.

18:58Therefore, I should be doing something productive

18:59rather than, I don't know,

19:00playing World of Warcraft or something.

19:01So what I'm trying to do is trying to tell myself

19:03that it's okay to choose to be satisfied

19:06with what I've done at the end of the day

19:07because ultimately it doesn't really change anything.

19:10All it does is make me feel better about my life.

19:12And then I can play World of Warcraft

19:14while streaming on Twitch and do it guilt-free

19:16rather than hating myself every step of the way

19:18as I level up my protection paladin.

19:20And so that is my toxic relationship with productivity.

19:23It's still a work in progress.

19:24It's been a while since I've been in a relationship

19:26with anyone or anything.

19:27So it's kind of novel in a way,

19:29but it's not the sort of relationship with productivity

19:31that I would like.

19:32And I'm, you know,

19:33she and I are working together to improve things.

19:36If you got to this point in the video,

19:37I'd love for you to leave a clover emoji in the comments.

19:39I'm always very curious to see

19:40how many people reached at the end of this video.

19:42If you haven't subscribed to the channel,

19:43you definitely should.

19:44And if you enjoyed this sort of video,

19:45we'll put a little playlist over here

19:46with more chit-chat, rambly type videos over a cup of tea

19:50if you're into that sort of thing.

19:51Thank you so much for watching.

19:51Really appreciate you guys

19:52for actually watching these videos.

19:53Like it's genuinely nice having like people

19:56who have my back as like a therapist on camera.

20:00So thanks for that.

20:01If you have any tips on how to solve this problem,

20:02let me know.

20:03Click the links over there

20:04and we'll see you in the next video.

20:05Good night.

My Toxic Relationship With Productivity - Ali Abdaal

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