How to Find Time for Everything with a Full Time Job
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My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78
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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 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
dailymotion.com/arshian
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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LearningTranscript
00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.
00:01If you're new here, my name is Ali.
00:02I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur
00:03and the author of Feel Good Productivity,
00:05which is about how to do more of what matters to you
00:07in a way that's enjoyable, meaningful, and sustainable.
00:09And this is the first episode of a three-part series
00:11about how to manage your time outside of your nine-to-five job.
00:15Now, this is a topic that's really close to my heart
00:16because I started this YouTube channel and my business,
00:18and basically every good thing in my life has happened
00:21as a result of me being able to manage my time
00:23outside of the time where I had a nine-to-five job
00:25when I was working full-time as a doctor.
00:27And really, this video series is for people who,
00:29for example, have a nine-to-five,
00:30whether you're a student or a professional or whatever,
00:33and you want to do stuff outside of it,
00:35but you maybe struggle to have the time and energy
00:37to do the stuff outside of the nine-to-five.
00:39And the stuff might be starting a business
00:41or growing a side hustle or this sort of thing,
00:43but it might not be.
00:43It might also be just taking up a hobby
00:45or making progress on that language
00:46that you're trying to learn,
00:47or even just giving more time to your friends and family.
00:49And so really, in this video series,
00:50I wanna try and share as many tips as I can
00:52so that you can take away some kind of philosophies
00:54or mindsets or experiments to run in your own life
00:56that can help you achieve more
00:59of the things that really matter to you
01:00outside of your nine-to-five.
01:01And so in this video,
01:02we're gonna be talking about the foundational mindsets
01:04and philosophies that you need to manage your time
01:06appropriately outside of your nine-to-five.
01:08In video two, we're gonna be talking about
01:10how to not waste your life,
01:11all the time drains that get in the way.
01:13And then in video number three,
01:14we're gonna talk about the five skills
01:15that you need to master
01:16in order to become amazing at time management.
01:18Depending on when you're watching this,
01:19these videos may well be out,
01:20so they'll be linked down in the video description.
01:22And I would recommend you watch them in order
01:24because then you get the philosophy
01:26before worrying about the tactics.
01:28All right, mindset number one,
01:29time management is a really valuable skill to work on.
01:32Now, the unfortunate truth is that we are all going to die.
01:34And the other unfortunate truth,
01:36or maybe fortunate truth,
01:37is that time is our single most valuable
01:40non-renewable resource.
01:41We can always make more money,
01:42but we can never make more time.
01:44The fact that you're here watching this video
01:45and maybe subscribe to my channel
01:47means that you care enough about this topic.
01:49You care about personal development, personal growth.
01:51You probably want to make the most of your time
01:53outside of your nine-to-five,
01:55but you might be, like I was back in the day,
01:57feeling a little overwhelmed
01:58with all the stuff that there is to do.
01:59And I think sometimes people will dismiss this
02:01to be like, well, you know,
02:02people who teach about time management,
02:03they're just like promoting hustle culture
02:05or like toxic productivity or any of that stuff.
02:07But this is not about getting you to work harder.
02:10This is not about getting you to hustle harder.
02:12This is literally about us appreciating
02:14that our time is our own to do with as we like.
02:18And if we tell ourselves the story
02:19that we're bad at time management
02:21and we haven't like actively worked on the skill
02:23of time management,
02:24then we fall into the default
02:25of like turning on the TV, going on Netflix
02:28and just clicking yes
02:29on whatever the recommendation has in store for us.
02:31We fall into the unintentional default
02:32of just going on our phones
02:33and habitually picking TikTok or Instagram or YouTube
02:36and just sort of scrolling and watching the videos.
02:38And the thing that made this hit home for me
02:40when I started to get into this productivity,
02:42procrastination, time management type stuff,
02:45the thing that really made it hit home
02:46was that I didn't want to be in a position where,
02:48you know, a few decades from now,
02:50I would look back on my life
02:51and I would feel like I'd squandered the time
02:54and the energy that I had when I was younger.
02:55Realistically, I probably,
02:57I'm probably not gonna remember the TV shows that I watched
02:58unless they're absolutely amazing.
02:59Game of Thrones, for example.
03:00I'm very unlikely to remember the time
03:02I spent scrolling YouTube shorts or Instagram or TikTok.
03:04But if I use my time intentionally and effectively
03:07on the things that I wanted to use it at the time
03:09on like the hobbies or friends and family
03:11or building my business,
03:12whatever the thing might be,
03:13I'm far more likely to sort of give a high five
03:15to my younger self.
03:16And so really the problem we're dealing with here
03:18is not a toxic productivity or hustle culture type thing.
03:21I'm not telling you, you just have to be more productive.
03:23What I'm suggesting is that time
03:25is so valuable and so important
03:27that spending a little bit of it,
03:28learning how to use it better,
03:30I think is a skill that all of us could benefit from.
03:32Now, as a bit of a side note,
03:33one thing that actually helped me be more intentional
03:35about my nutrition when I was working a nine to five job
03:37and even beyond that
03:38is Huel, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
03:40Now, I've been a paying customer of Huel since 2017,
03:43since my fifth year of medical school.
03:44And that was actually when I first started
03:45this YouTube channel as well.
03:46And I've been eating Huel fairly regularly since then
03:48because it's a fantastic way to make sure
03:50that my nutritional bases are covered
03:52when I don't have the time
03:53or I choose not to make the time
03:55to cook a healthy and nutritious meal.
03:56Obviously, gold standard would be you cook
03:58and eat a healthy meal for every single meal of the day.
04:00But in reality, with busy lives,
04:01and especially with a hectic work schedule,
04:03it can be often hard to make time
04:04to do that three times a day.
04:06And the nice thing about Huel is that in those moments,
04:08instead of eating a totally unhealthy meal
04:09from like the work cafeteria
04:11or from like the Starbucks on the way to work,
04:13I can instead just eat Huel.
04:15And most of their meals have 400 calories,
04:16at least 20 grams of protein,
04:1826 vitamins and minerals and nutrients.
04:19And so I know that my bases are at least covered.
04:22Now, if you've been thinking of starting Huel,
04:23you should definitely check out their new bestseller bundle.
04:25And this is a bundle of all of their bestselling products.
04:27So you can see which one you like best.
04:28It includes the Huel Black Edition,
04:29which is my personal favourite
04:30because it's a higher protein version of Huel.
04:32It also includes some instant meals,
04:34nutrition bars and daily A to Z vitamin cans.
04:37Yeah, I'm just genuinely a massive fan of Huel.
04:38And I think it's amazing for those moments of the day
04:40where you don't have the time
04:42to have a proper healthy meal instead.
04:43So if you're interested in checking out
04:44the bestseller bundle,
04:45then do check out the link in the video description.
04:47And the bundle also includes a free t-shirt and a shaker,
04:50which are both actually really high quality.
04:52And with the bundle, you also get a nutrition guide
04:53that gives you some advice on your own nutrition
04:55and also how to get the most out of Huel.
04:57So thank you so much Huel for sponsoring this video
04:59and let's get back to it.
05:00All right, mindset number two is
05:02you can do anything you want, but not everything you want.
05:05If you're watching this video
05:06and if maybe you follow my channel,
05:07then you're probably the sort of person
05:09that takes on too much stuff.
05:11You're probably quite ambitious.
05:13You're probably quite hardworking.
05:14You probably wanna thrive in your nine to five.
05:15You wanna do all the work,
05:16but maybe you also wanna be intentional
05:18about your health and relationships
05:19and wanna level those up.
05:20There is a phrase, there's a story
05:23that is wrongly attributed to Warren Buffett,
05:25but I think it's directionally legit.
05:27I don't know where this attribution came from,
05:29but a guy called Alex Benayan once asked Warren Buffett
05:31at his Omaha conference.
05:33Mr. Buffett, I've heard that one of your ways
05:36of focusing your energy is that you write down
05:39the 25 things you want to achieve,
05:42choose the top five, and then avoid the bottom 20.
05:45Buffett kind of laughed and said that was complete BS.
05:47Like he has never said that.
05:49Well, I'm actually more curious
05:50about how you came up with it,
05:51because it really isn't the case.
05:56It sounds like a very good method of operating,
05:58but it's much more disciplined than I actually am.
06:01But, you know, directionally, the advice is still legit,
06:04even if Warren Buffett never actually said the thing.
06:06A lot of our priorities five to 25 end up derailing
06:09and taking a lot of time away
06:11from the things that truly matter to us.
06:12And really, we all have the best will in the world
06:14when it comes to this.
06:15Like, you know, maybe you watch my channel
06:16and you're like, oh, it'd be pretty cool to be a YouTuber.
06:18I want to start a YouTube channel.
06:19And then maybe you're like, oh, you know,
06:20I'd love to write online.
06:21You know, for me, I was like,
06:22I want to get better at the guitar.
06:23I don't want to get better at piano.
06:24I want to get better at singing.
06:25I'd love to be able to play by ear.
06:27Oh man, drawing would be really cool.
06:28I'd love to learn how to draw.
06:29You know what?
06:29I'd love to learn Japanese,
06:30because I like watching anime.
06:32And it's just, we keep on adding to the to-do list.
06:34And we fail to realize that a big part of time management
06:37is about prioritization.
06:38It's about knowing what you want to say no to,
06:40so that you have the time, energy, and focus
06:42to truly say yes to the things that really matter.
06:45And there is a story from my time as a doctor
06:47that I always think about.
06:50This was when I was in my first week
06:52of working in the emergency department.
06:54And I walk into the emergency department,
06:56and I, you know, I take a look in the waiting room.
06:58And the waiting room is absolutely teeming with patients.
07:00There's just so many people.
07:01And I'm like, whoa, this is where the real medicine is at.
07:04I'm going to save their lives.
07:05And I go to my computer and I go through the list.
07:07And then I see the next patient in order of priority.
07:09And by the end of the day, I've seen about eight patients,
07:11because it takes me about an hour.
07:12It's like an eight hour shift.
07:13And I don't even take my lunch break,
07:15because I've got the energy, I've got the vibe,
07:16I've got the passion, I'm going to save their lives.
07:18And on my way home, I look in the waiting room,
07:21and it's still absolutely teeming with patients.
07:24It's still completely full.
07:25What the hell?
07:25And then on Tuesday, I'm like, all right, cool.
07:26It's day two.
07:27That was my first day.
07:28I was a little bit inefficient.
07:29I only saw one patient an hour.
07:30Let me be more efficient with this.
07:32Let me take two patients at a time.
07:33Let me batch my calls to radiology.
07:34Let me batch the bloods that I'm doing.
07:36Let me sort of parallel process so there's no downtime.
07:38And I was applying all of my kind of productivity principles
07:41to the seeing of patients.
07:44Again, I skipped my lunch break,
07:45and I saw 12 patients that day.
07:47I managed to do one and a half patients an hour,
07:48or 1.2 patients an hour, whatever the number is.
07:51And then on my way home, I looked in the waiting room,
07:53and it was still absolutely teeming with patients.
07:56It was like nothing I did made any difference.
07:58And then, okay, the next day,
08:00I was like, what the hell's going on here?
08:01And I mentioned this to one of the consultants,
08:03and the consultant said to me,
08:04it's your first day, isn't it?
08:05I was like, yeah, how do you know?
08:07And he was like, yeah,
08:08because everyone realizes this a few days to a few weeks in.
08:10And what he said really has really stuck with me since.
08:12He said, the waiting room will never be empty.
08:15There will always be more patients to see.
08:17All we can do is show up each day as our best selves
08:20and see patients in order of priority.
08:22He also forced me to take my lunch break
08:23because it's like legally mandated
08:25that every four hours you have to take a lunch break
08:27because otherwise your focus and concentration falls.
08:28And so I actually started taking my lunch breaks.
08:31But that has really stuck with me
08:32because whatever you're doing with your job,
08:34whatever you're doing outside your job,
08:35whatever you're doing with your family,
08:36there is always more you could be doing.
08:38You know, I've heard from parents.
08:39It's like, you know, you think you're doing well at work,
08:40and then you get home and it's like, you know,
08:43the school is saying you've got to bake a cake
08:44for the fricking bake sale.
08:45You've got to do your parent teacher meeting.
08:47You've got to do this and that.
08:47You've got to sign up to be a governor of the board.
08:49And if you're an entrepreneur, you know, I've got a business.
08:52You might have a side hustle.
08:53You know, there is always an infinite amount
08:55of work to be done.
08:56The waiting room will never be empty.
08:57But as long as we can show up each day as our best selves
09:00and crucially focus on things in order of priority,
09:03then in a way it doesn't matter
09:05if the waiting room is always full
09:06because as long as you are seeing
09:07the highest priority patients first,
09:09this is how a surgeon on the battlefield triage patients.
09:12If someone's about to die, you see them first.
09:14If someone's, you know, got a bit of a cough,
09:15you see them second, and then you reprioritize.
09:18I think of my entire to-do list and time management
09:20and like everything I'm trying to do with that metaphor.
09:23The waiting room will never be empty.
09:24Therefore, what I choose to do is just show up
09:26as my best self every day
09:27and focus on things in order of priority.
09:29And if we can just do that every day forever,
09:32then we're not gonna be filled with regret
09:34that like we made the wrong decisions early on in our lives.
09:36Oh, by the way, quick thing.
09:37We've done some polling of the audience
09:38that watches this channel
09:39and listens to my podcast and stuff.
09:41And one thing that people seem
09:42to continuously struggle with is focus.
09:45And that is why I've prepared for you
09:46a completely free focus crash course,
09:48which is seven days of emails
09:49where I break down all of the most effective science
09:52and practical tips on how to actually focus better.
09:54And you can get that completely for free
09:55at focuscrashcourse.com.
09:57All right, mindset number three
09:59is that life maintenance is not the goal.
10:02There are broadly two buckets of things
10:04that we can do with our time.
10:06There are things that we have to do
10:08to maintain the status quo, to maintain our lives.
10:11And then there are things that we can do
10:13to progress our lives.
10:14And progress can be anything.
10:15It could be in work, it could be side hustle,
10:16it could be like taking up a new hobby, learning a skill,
10:18you know, that kind of stuff.
10:19Actively improving a relationship,
10:21actively improving our health rather than just maintaining.
10:23And when you have a nine to five,
10:25when you're working full time,
10:26it can be very easy for all of the stuff
10:28that you do outside of your nine to five
10:30to be in the life maintenance camp.
10:31So for example, sleeping eight hours a night,
10:34you know, that's the life maintenance camp, unfortunately.
10:36We kind of have to do it,
10:38but it's not really progressing us in any meaningful way.
10:40It is maintaining the status quo.
10:42Similarly, cooking and eating food
10:45is in the category of life maintenance.
10:47It's just, you know, you have to eat.
10:49Unless you're like actively trying to improve
10:51your cooking skills and experimenting
10:52with new recipes and stuff, you know,
10:54then that would fall in the progression camp.
10:55But just cooking and eating and cleaning up
10:57is in the maintenance camp.
10:58Cleaning the house, unfortunately,
10:59is in the maintenance camp.
11:00There are all sorts of these activities
11:01that we need to do in the life maintenance camp.
11:03And what it can be really easy to do,
11:05especially if you're overwhelmed with stuff at work
11:06and stuff at home, is for everything we do
11:09to either be going to work or to be maintaining our life
11:13and maintaining the ability
11:14to then go to work the next day.
11:16Now, obviously, in certain seasons of our life,
11:18we're gonna be, you know, more imbalanced
11:20where we're just gonna, where it's gonna be
11:22a bit of a struggle just to get by.
11:23A lot of people were like this in the pandemic.
11:24I hear that when you have kids,
11:25it becomes like that for a few years.
11:27But generally, the way I like to think about this
11:29is that I wanna make sure that every day
11:31I'm spending at least one or two hours
11:33doing stuff that is progressing my life outside of work,
11:36not just maintaining it.
11:38So this might involve, for example,
11:39blocking out time specifically to work on specific projects.
11:42This might involve setting goals for the year
11:44or setting goals for the quarter
11:45and then actively making time to work towards those goals.
11:48This might involve thinking of my gym stuff
11:50rather than I just wanna exercise
11:53because exercise is required for life maintenance.
11:55Instead of thinking about it as I wanna train,
11:57I wanna train for a specific thing.
11:59I wanna get my bench pressed to 100 kg
12:00or my deadlift to like 180
12:02or like I wanna train for that marathon.
12:04This sense of progress is a big part
12:06of what makes life feel fulfilling and meaningful.
12:09And a big part of when people feel like they're in a rut
12:11is because they go to work, they come home,
12:14they maintain and then they go to work the next day.
12:16So what I would encourage you to do if you haven't yet
12:18is tangibly, practically speaking,
12:21set some goals for the year.
12:23Now, lots of you attended my annual planning workshop
12:25that I hosted a couple of weeks ago,
12:27planning to do more of these.
12:28But if you have not yet set goals for the year,
12:30honestly, what I would recommend
12:31is you pause the video right now
12:32and have a think 12 months from now,
12:35what would you like to be celebrating?
12:37What would you like to be celebrating?
12:39You know, when I do talks and stuff,
12:40I ask people to close their eyes,
12:41I play some soulful music in the background,
12:42Tony Robbins style, it's great, love the shit.
12:45But what would you like to be celebrating 12 months from now
12:48in work, in health and in relationships?
12:50Those are like the three broad buckets of life.
12:53You could add more to the list if you want.
12:54We tend to want to celebrate the wins.
12:56We wanna celebrate some kind of progress.
12:58So what kind of progress could you make in work,
12:59in health, in relationships
13:00that you can imagine yourself celebrating
13:02with a friend 12 months from now?
13:03And then once you've thought about that,
13:05it is worth writing it down
13:06somewhere you can see it regularly.
13:08So for me, I have a Google Doc,
13:10which is the first thing on my Chrome.
13:11I call it my Goalkeeper Doc
13:12because it's where I keep my goals
13:13and where I do my weekly reviews, more on that in part three.
13:15But that is something that I look at at least once a week
13:18and it reminds me of what my goals are.
13:20And it helps me get into this mode of thinking,
13:22oh yeah, I do have a sense of progress,
13:24I do have a sense of momentum.
13:25And there's a really nice phrase,
13:26which is that it's not about the pursuit of happiness,
13:29it's about the happiness of pursuit.
13:31A lot of using our time well and managing our time
13:34is having something to actually work towards
13:36outside of our nine to five
13:37that helps us feel this sense of purpose.
13:39It gives us a reason to be better at time management.
13:42It gives us a reason to not procrastinate so much.
13:44It gives us a reason to prioritize and set goals
13:47and work towards them
13:48while enjoying the journey along the way.
13:49Because that sense of, I'm on a journey,
13:53I'm climbing the summit,
13:54there is something I'm working towards
13:56is profoundly energizing and it's profoundly fulfilling,
13:59even outside of work.
14:00All right, mindset number four
14:01is the mindset of intentionality.
14:04In the world of meditation,
14:06I think in like monasteries and stuff,
14:08they have a bell, a ding that goes off every now and then.
14:12And the point of the ding is to remind the monks
14:16or the people in the monastery or whatever
14:18to focus on the present moment.
14:19One way to think about time management
14:21is, especially if you're in the confines of a full-time job,
14:26one way to think about it is,
14:28to what extent am I being intentional
14:29with the way I'm using my time?
14:31Because when you get good at time management,
14:32you'll end up with basically 100% intentionality.
14:34So for example, if you imagine this bell
14:37were to go off every 15 minutes
14:38and when the bell goes off, the ding happens
14:41and you ask yourself,
14:42to what extent were the last 15 minutes intentional or not?
14:46That gives you a sense of,
14:48am I using my time intentionally
14:49or am I not using my time intentionally?
14:50Now, let's say you intended to,
14:52for example, cook and eat food.
14:53Ding, the bell goes off, great, fantastic.
14:54You've cooked and eaten food.
14:56But let's say the bell goes off
14:58and in the last 15 minutes,
14:59you've been scrolling TikTok or Instagram
15:00or watching Netflix
15:01and you didn't actively make that intention
15:03to do those things.
15:04Now, you have not been intentional with your use of time.
15:06That's not to say it's a bad thing.
15:07That's not to say you should beat yourself up,
15:09but the point of time management
15:10and getting good at this stuff
15:11is that we wanna get it to a point
15:12that every 15 minute block of time
15:14that we have in our calendars and in our lives
15:16is at least intentional.
15:18Now, again, this does not have to be doing work.
15:21This does not have to be doing things that are productive.
15:23It just needs to be things that are intentional.
15:25Did you intend to scroll TikTok for 15 minutes?
15:27If so, great.
15:28If not, then that's something we can work on.
15:31Did you intend to watch that Netflix show
15:33and another episode and another episode
15:35and another episode?
15:36If so, fantastic, you're literally living the dream.
15:38But if not, now we've been a bit unintentional
15:40with how we've been using our time.
15:41And I like intentionality as the bar.
15:43You know, sometimes people will say to me
15:44in podcasts and stuff,
15:46you know, are there any times where you're not productive?
15:49And for me, like productivity
15:50is basically the same as intentionality.
15:52It's like, if I'm using my time well,
15:54I consider that being productive.
15:55So if I intended to watch four episodes
15:57of House of the Dragon, I consider that productive.
15:59But if I have found myself watching four episodes
16:01of House of the Dragon, having not intended to,
16:04I would consider that unproductive.
16:05And really the goal of time management
16:06is firstly to have the sense of progress
16:09of things that we're actively doing,
16:11but then secondly, to intentionally use
16:14the blocks of time that we have
16:16and the way I think about it
16:17is that each of these blocks of time is 15 minutes.
16:18I think 15 minutes is a good amount.
16:20You could think of it as hours,
16:22but an hour is a bit too long.
16:24I think, you know, thinking of it as like,
16:26there are four of these blocks of time every hour
16:28and every hour I have a choice
16:30of what I can do with these 15 minutes.
16:3215 minutes is a lot of time.
16:33It's a lot of time to make progress
16:34on making a YouTube video,
16:35a lot of time to make progress on writing a book.
16:3715 minutes to connect with your spouse
16:39or your loved one with your entire presence.
16:41It's actually quite a lot of time.
16:43Like from what I've read and what I've experienced,
16:45most romantic partners care a lot less
16:47about the quantity of time that you spend together
16:49and it's a lot more about the quality of time.
16:51And so really 15 minutes is a solid block of time.
16:5315 minutes is enough time to make progress
16:55on meaningful projects and also to make progress
16:57on improving the health of our most important relationships.
16:59And mindset number five is treat yourself like a robot.
17:03Now, what I mean by this is that if for example,
17:05you were programming a robot
17:06and it didn't do what you intended it to do,
17:08you wouldn't like flagellate the robot.
17:10You wouldn't like beat it up.
17:11You wouldn't like tell the robot it's a terrible person.
17:15You would just think, oh, okay, the code didn't work.
17:16You know, I programmed the system wrong.
17:19And when it comes to time management,
17:20focus, distraction, productivity,
17:22a lot of procrastination, a lot of this stuff,
17:24we tend to have a lot of negative energy
17:26towards ourselves about it.
17:28Like, oh man, I'm such a fricking idiot.
17:30I didn't go to the gym three times this week.
17:31Oh, why do I always procrastinate?
17:34Like it would be so counterproductive
17:35to say that kind of stuff to a robot
17:36if we thought it was a robot
17:37because it's just the system that hasn't worked.
17:39And so if we can treat ourselves like a robot
17:41in like a nice way,
17:42it means that when we struggle with something
17:45or when we fail to be intentional
17:46with how we're managing our time or procrastinating
17:48or getting distracted or whatever,
17:49it means the solution to the problem
17:51is we just need to tweak the system
17:54rather than I need to beat myself up.
17:56Now I'm saying all of this with the risk
17:57that I sometimes get comments being like,
17:59oh my God, Ali Abdaal is such a productivity robot.
18:01It's like, you know what, I'll take it.
18:03If being a productivity robot means I don't beat myself up
18:06for failing to do the things that I intended to do,
18:08then that's a trade I'll take any day of the week.
18:11But I guess, practically speaking, an example is,
18:13so, you know, when I was working as a doctor,
18:15when I had a real job,
18:16when I had my nine to five confining me
18:18with an hour commute to work, an hour commute back,
18:20having to like cook for myself or whatever,
18:23I wanted to build this YouTube channel.
18:24I wanted to film one or two videos a week
18:26and edit them and publish them.
18:27This was back when I was doing my own editing.
18:30And there were certain days
18:31where I would get home from work
18:33and I would feel completely drained
18:34and I would not have the energy to actually edit the videos.
18:37Now, in that context,
18:39I could have just decided to push through it.
18:42I could have beaten myself up.
18:43I could have told myself I'm an idiot
18:45and I just need to be more disciplined,
18:46need to work harder, all that.
18:47I could have had all of those narratives.
18:49But instead what I did
18:50is I would treat myself like a system.
18:51I would be like, okay,
18:53the robot did not have enough energy in the tank
18:55to do video editing this evening.
18:57Great, that's useful to know.
18:59Why did the robot not have the energy?
19:01Well, okay, well,
19:02robot only got four hours of sleep last night
19:03because robot was on a night shift the night before.
19:04I was like, okay, cool.
19:06That's useful to know.
19:07Why else?
19:08Well, robot didn't really eat anything today or day
19:09because it was like a stupidly busy day
19:11on like the obstetrics and gynecology ward
19:12with all these emergencies.
19:13I was like, okay, cool.
19:14Emergencies happened
19:15and I didn't have time to take care of myself.
19:17Nice.
19:18Therefore, what can that tell me about next time?
19:20So next time around,
19:21let me make sure I don't time block
19:23an editing session for myself after a night shift
19:25because it's very hard to have the energy
19:27after a night shift where I don't have much sleep.
19:29And secondly, let me make sure,
19:30you know, there is always five minutes to take a lunch break.
19:33There's always five minutes
19:34to just grab a little sandwich, grab something
19:35rather than just starving myself all day.
19:38Cool.
19:39Now I've got like a new set of algorithms,
19:40which is number one, no editing after a night shift.
19:43And number two, eat every day for lunch.
19:46It's not that hard.
19:46I've treated myself like a system.
19:48And yet I know so many people
19:49who are in identical situations or analogous situations
19:52where they won't take that step back to think,
19:54why did this happen?
19:55They will just say, oh, this thing happened.
19:57I failed.
19:58I failed to do this thing.
19:59Therefore, I'm bad.
20:01Therefore, I'm lazy.
20:01Therefore, I'm a procrastinator.
20:03And it gets into this like personal flagellation.
20:05But if you just think of yourself as a system,
20:08you just identify and diagnose
20:09what were the problems with that system today?
20:12Cool, what does that mean
20:13about what you should do moving forward?
20:14Great, hunky dory, life is all good.
20:15Okay, so we've talked about these five mindset shifts.
20:17But if there's just one thing
20:18that you take away from this video,
20:20I would love for that to be actually having some goals
20:23outside of your work, some personal goals to work towards.
20:26Because there's no point in time management
20:28if it's just gonna result in us watching, I don't know,
20:29watching more Netflix or just maintaining our life
20:31a little bit better.
20:32I think it's really important to have those things
20:34that we're working towards.
20:35Have a think about this 12 month celebration.
20:37And then in videos two and three of this series,
20:39we're gonna be talking much more
20:40about practical things that you can do.
20:42But it's almost like, you know,
20:44that Simon Sinek book, start with why.
20:45If you don't have a why behind
20:47why you wanna be more productive
20:48or why you wanna manage your time better,
20:49then it's just not gonna happen, right?
20:51We need to have a clear why.
20:52We need to have a set of goals that we're working towards
20:54just outside of our work
20:55so that we're not just spending our life
20:57maintaining the ability to do our nine to five.
20:59But instead, we're actually making meaningful progress
21:02in the pursuit of something that is meaningful to us.
21:05It does not have to be a business.
21:06It does not have to be a YouTube channel.
21:08But it can be if you want, that's what I did.
21:09That's why I'm here.
21:10It can be whatever you want,
21:11but it should be something outside of just life maintenance.
21:14That's what I would say.
21:15So this was episode one of our three part series
21:17around managing your time outside of a nine to five.
21:19Check out this video here for episode number two,
21:20which is all about the practical things we can do
21:22to minimise the amount of time we're wasting
21:24or draining away from the things that drain our time.
21:27So I hope you enjoy this video
21:28and I'll hopefully see you in the next one.