The Top 5 Traits Of The Super Productive - Ali Abdaal

Chris Williamson 0:00 Ali Abdaal, welcome to the show.

Ali Abdaal 0:01 Thank you so much for having me. This is gonna be fun.

Chris Williamson 0:03 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 0:03 And we've got your little, your little drinks over here, which we can sip on throughout the episode. I love this.

Chris Williamson 0:06 And we've got your mechanical keyboard in front of us as well. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 0:09 Mechanical key- I feel like we're, we're doing a lot of sharing here. We've got my book, the keyboard-

Chris Williamson 0:12 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 0:12 ... your drinks.

Chris Williamson 0:13 Yeah. (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 0:14 But it, it's kinda nice because we're also working with the same company to put this stuff together.

Chris Williamson 0:17 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 0:17 And it's just, it's, it's cool that there is this sort of creator collaboration-y stuff going on, now with physical products.

Chris Williamson 0:23 I think so. I like the fact, you know, having something that is my own, that I spent so much time building, is so nice. So that's the brand new, right now when we're recording this, this Tropical Ice, which is the white one, isn't out, so this is gonna be first taste test for you. It is ambient as well, so crack that open, so you-

Ali Abdaal 0:36 What does ambient mean?

Chris Williamson 0:38 Warm. It's warm rather than chilled.

Ali Abdaal 0:40 Oh, I see. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 0:40 So, have a crack at that and see what you think.

Ali Abdaal 0:46 (laughs) Oh, it's very nice. That's le- cheers.

Chris Williamson 0:49 Cheers. Yeah, this is my favorite flavor. It's like a, it's a white Monster killer.

Ali Abdaal 0:56 Yeah, it was weird, 'cause, so, um, when I tried this one for the first time-

Chris Williamson 1:00 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 1:00 ... I was in LA and I didn't have much sleep for, like, two nights, 'cause I had to, I had like a, an 8:00 AM meeting with my team the next day, and late nights and stuff, 'cause I hanging out with people in LA. And I cracked open one of these. I wa- I, I went to the local WeWork, had one of these, and I genuinely felt so focused. And my team-

Chris Williamson 1:15 You messaged me that morning.

Ali Abdaal 1:15 ... were literally commenting... Well, yeah, my team were commenting, being like, "How've you, how've you got so much done?" (laughs) 'Cause I was just like...

Chris Williamson 1:19 Yep.

Ali Abdaal 1:20 And I'm not sure if it was placebo, but like, (laughs) I would just, you know-

Chris Williamson 1:22 Dude, if it works, if it works, it works. So your new book-

Ali Abdaal 1:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:25 Feel Good Productivity, everyone needs to go and buy that right now. I know you've spent an awful lot of time working on it for a long time.

Ali Abdaal 1:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:31 Why does feeling good have anything to do with

Chris Williamson 1:35 productivity? They're two words that don't usually go together.

Ali Abdaal 1:37 They don't usually, um, but there is a large amount of evidence that suggests that they very much do go together. So one of the theories, have you, have you come acr- uh, have you come across this, the broaden and build theory?

Chris Williamson 1:47 No.

Ali Abdaal 1:47 So this is the idea, um, you know, there's a psychologist called B- Barbara Fredrickson, who, in 2001, came up with this theory. Um, it was based on studies that showed that if you get people into a lab and get them to do tasks of creativity, and then you split them into two groups, and you give one group a candy bar or something, and you give the other group nothing, for some reason, the group who gets a candy bar comes up with more creative solutions to whatever problem that they're trying to solve. And so the theory was, okay, there's something about, you know, priming someone with positive emotions that affects our creativity. And then they did, you know, one, one of the theories around this is, back in caveman times, if, for example, someone was experiencing positive emotions, that's usually a sign of safety. Things are pretty chill, things are good, and so when the cavemen are experiencing positive emotions, when they're feeling good, they are more inclined to go out and explore. So they're gonna see what's in that cave over there, what's in that forest over there, let me build my friendships and stuff. And so Bob, uh, you know, Professor, uh, Barbara Fredrickson came up with this theory called broaden and build, which is that when you feel good, when you experience positive emotions, it broadens the amount of actions that are available to you, and it builds resources, like social connections and actual physical resources and stuff. Whereas the converse, negative emotions, if caveman human is feeling negative emotions, it's like, "Shit, I'm stressed. There is a tiger on the horizon. I need to, I n- I, I, I have a very small range of options to choose from, fight, flight, freeze, and I have to act within that range." And, and so the idea is that feeling good makes us more creative, more productive, less stressed, and boosts our energy levels. And there are so many studies that, that back all this up. And conversely, negative emotions have the opposite effect, so very few people can be creative and can perform productively when they are feeling negative emotions.

Chris Williamson 3:26 What is the link between creativity and productivity? 'Cause those two things don't necessarily sound synonymous to me. In fact, some of the most creative people that I know, like my housemate Zack-

Ali Abdaal 3:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:35 ... are really, really unproductive.

Ali Abdaal 3:37 It's okay.

Chris Williamson 3:37 The executive function and openness seem to be basically opposite ends of the same spectrum. How are you squaring this circle of creativity and productivity?

Ali Abdaal 3:47 Yeah, so for me, productivity, I'm, I'm defining as doing whatever matters to you, uh, in a way that's intentional and effective and, uh, uh, you know, ideally enjoyable as well. So for some people, you know, if you are an artist, then creativity is productivity. Um, and the studies that they do don't u- on, on this stuff, don't use the word productivity, they use the word performance. And so however you define performance, like studies in the workplace, performance is judged by evaluations from your manager. If you're a writer, performance is judged by word count. If you're a, uh, in, in creative tasks, performance is judged by how creative you are. So I kinda smuggle the two concepts in together-

Chris Williamson 4:22 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 4:23 ... because (laughs) I actually think there is not that much of a difference between creativity and productivity, depending on... You know, for example, if you're, if, if you're an accountant, then creative accounting is probably unproductive, because it's not what you're trying to do. But if you're a knowledge worker, if you're a writer, if you're a YouTuber, whatever, creativity is productivity because it's literally what you're trying to do.

Chris Williamson 4:40 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 4:40 And-

Chris Williamson 4:40 And there's often, I guess, uh, power law multipliers available, where you come up with a solution that means that you can be more efficient, which requires you to probably be creative ahead of that. It's like, if you come up with a creative solution to a productivity problem.

Ali Abdaal 4:52 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 4:53 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 4:53 Yeah. And I think in, in the world today, like especially people listening to this, most people do not have jobs where the goal is to just crank out more widgets per hour. There is, you know, uh, Hormozi talks about this, you know, the people who are billionaires are not working any harder than you and me, they're just playing different chess moves.

Chris Williamson 5:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 5:07 And often (laughs) , you know, finding the right chess move to play means that you can get a 10X outcome without working anywhere near as hard as someone who's trying to work 10 times harder.

Chris Williamson 5:16 That was the Shaan Puri insight, his is a bit more controversial, where he says hard work is massively overrated, but the lesson is that it's more important about what you work on rather than how hard you work-

Ali Abdaal 5:27 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 5:27 ... because the correct decision... If you say that work done equals time times intensity-

Ali Abdaal 5:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:32 ... but that's only within effectiveness.

Ali Abdaal 5:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:34 Right? Like, work done is time times intensity, but you can get different outcomes based on how much you leverage. So all right, you and me

Chris Williamson 5:43 have been friends for a long time. You've spent years-

Ali Abdaal 5:45 Yeah, three years.

Chris Williamson 5:45 ... writing this book, and even longer building up your corpus of productivity stuff on your YouTube channel. Given that you've written about, about productivity, why is it not filled with Pomodoro technique and time blocking and how to build a good Notion template? Why is it not...... just a, a tools guide?

Ali Abdaal 6:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:07 Wh- why is it more feely?

Ali Abdaal 6:09 Yeah. So initially when I started writing this, it was more of a toolsy type thing, because, you know, as a productivity bro, I love learning about the tools and the templates and stuff. But I realized that in my own life, the thing that has made me most productive... You know, people would alwa- always ask, "How were you able to build a YouTube channel and the business while working as a doctor?" And, you know, it's all demanding and stuff. And really this, it, it was never because I had a magical to-do list. And when people look at my phone, they're like, "Oh, actually, it's, it just looks like everyone else's. It's a bit of a mess. My to-do list is always overflowing." It was never really about that. It was about the fact that I found, I consistently found ways to make whatever I was doing feel good. I found ways to make whatever I was doing energizing and enjoyable. And it wasn't always like that. So when I started off working as a junior doctor in the NHS, conditions were pretty bad, and they still are. And I had this sort of grindy mentality where I was, I was feeling drained every day at work, I wasn't enjoying it, but my view was, "Uh, you know, you've just gotta struggle through this because everyone says the first two years are the hardest. And as long as you struggle for long enough, then on the other side of that, whatever that thing is..." In, in my case, it was, "Once I become a specialist, then once I become a consultant, once I hit some arbitrary milestone, then my life will be chill." But then I would speak to people who were at those milestones, and their lives were not chill either. They were also having a, a, a pretty terrible time at work. And this sort of made me realize, "Wai- wai- wait a minute, I'm trying to juggle this full-time job and also build my YouTube channel and my business on the side. I don't have any energy to do this." I do actually have time in the evenings, 'cause I was only working 60 hours a week, and there's, like, another 50 hours to play with, but I just didn't have the energy. And it was when I started to actively find ways to make medicine, my day job, feel more energizing and enjoyable, that was what really unlocked the energy to focus on my YouTube channel. And I've spoken to you about this sometimes, where you manage to hit the gym way more consistently than I do, and you also manage to record, uh, podcasts way more consistently than I do, like at a stupid rate of, like, three or four or five per week. But I suspect you don't need to grind. It doesn't feel like a grind to you. It feels like play. I suspect it feels good.

Chris Williamson 8:05 I've had to do things to make it feel more like play. So especially when it comes to training-

Ali Abdaal 8:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:09 ... one of the things that I've had to do is get a coach. So for a very long time, I trained on my own, very hard, and that was great, but I'm 35 now, and I've been training for a decade and a bit, and I just can't push myself as hard in the gym on my own as I used to. When I'm training with one of my boys, I can. If I'm training in a class, I can. If I've got my coach with me, I can. But on my own, I can't. And I was like, "All right, well, this seems to be a change in my motivation setup, so I need to account for it." So I got a coach.

Ali Abdaal 8:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:36 So I'm training with my trainer three times a week, I'm training in a class twice a week, and I'm training with one of my boys once a week. That's a six-day-a-week split.

Ali Abdaal 8:42 Wow.

Chris Williamson 8:43 Um, the same goes for recording the podcast. If I was a YouTuber, like you, it would be really difficult because I find sitting down, writing a script, getting in front of the camera, all of that quite hard. The accountability, I work very well with accountability and also working in groups-

Ali Abdaal 8:56 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:56 ... or working at least with someone. The podcast is always with someone. So I guess I've learned one of the quirks of me, which is that although I work well in solitude, I'm most accountable when there is someone waiting for it.

Ali Abdaal 9:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:10 The same reason if I was... Uh, m- my journaling for myself, compliance is 50%, but my newsletter compliance weekly is 100%, right? A thousand words a week for three years now, right?

Ali Abdaal 9:22 Nice.

Chris Williamson 9:22 Every single week without, without stop. Ruptured Achilles, it's holiday, I'm in Guatemala, or I'm getting my visa, whatever. Like, always done. Wrote it on the plane from Peterson to the UK and uploaded it on plane wifi two days ago, right? Because I know that if I don't do it, people are gonna notice.

Ali Abdaal 9:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:38 So I've realized that that is a motivation for me. Um, training is on the feelgood side. The other stuff is a little bit more stick than carrot, I suppose-

Ali Abdaal 9:47 Okay.

Chris Williamson 9:47 ... or at least it's motivator rather than encourager.

Ali Abdaal 9:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:50 Um, but yeah, finding the quirks of you and then reverse engineering an environment that allows you to tweak the very specific knobs and levers that trigger your motivation, that's... And I don't think that that's you being a... The David Goggins inside of you might say, "You should just do this because you want, like, you should do hard things, blah, blah, blah." It's like, well, yeah, but you can do hard things in an easier way.

Ali Abdaal 10:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:11 And that's what that is.

Ali Abdaal 10:12 Absolutely. So the, y- y- so there's, there, there's two things I wo- I would say to that. So firstly, that's, that's an amazing example. Uh, the third chapter of this book is all about people. And there is just stupid amounts of evidence that says that the way that we, when- whenever we work in a way that involves other people, it's just, it's more energizing, it's more enjoyable, it's more motivating. This is why people benefit from accountability buddies. The way I used to do it was at university. I found that if I was grinding away on my own, I'd be pretty miserable. I, I'd be effective because, you know, I can, I can, I can use, I can employ discipline and willpower to force myself to sit there on my own and do my, do my work. But if I go to the library with five other friends, we're all doing our work.

Chris Williamson 10:49 Was it PomSoc that you used to do?

Ali Abdaal 10:50 Yeah. Pomodoro Society. We were like, we would do Pomodoros together. We would do 25 minutes of work. We were all in, in different subjects, studying different things, and then five minutes of break. And there's something about doing it with friends that just made the whole thing way more enjoyable, way more energizing-

Chris Williamson 11:03 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 11:03 ... and it meant that I had energy in the evenings to, I don't know, like, hang out with friends or, like, work on my websites back in the day. And I think this is something that people don't think about enough. There is this idea that, like, "Oh, I focus better when I'm on my own." It's like, okay, you focus better when you're, uh, wh- when you're on your own and there are very, th- there are some small number of people that are just totally chill about that. They never struggle with procrastination, they never struggle with distraction. They're just able to grind it, grind it out on their own. If you're that person and you're also having fun, then great. This advice is not for you. But for the rest of us, for most of us, we are, you know, humans are social creatures. We benefit from the energy of the people around us. So finding a way to do anything with other people makes you way more effective and (laughs) generally makes it way more fun as well.

Chris Williamson 11:43 Yeah, it's, it's a delicate balance. I remember I went to an office for the first time in a long time, uh, toward the back end of COVID and was reminded... I, I always used to think, "Oh, look at how distracted I get when I sit at the computer," and that five minutes on YouTube or that 10 minutes scrolling Instagram or whatever, like, you see it from the front row seat. But I went into an office and saw one person go, "Anybody want a coffee?" And then they go, "Oh yeah, yeah. Have we got any of that blonde roast left?" It's like, "No, we haven't. We need to get some in." "Oh, okay. What about those Vietnamese royal biscuit?" And you realize that someone asking the whole room if they want a coffee or not just sapped three minutes out of everybody.

Ali Abdaal 12:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:17 And the three minutes isn't much, but that's...... 40 times a day, right? That's just always happening-

Ali Abdaal 12:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:23 ... over and over and over again. So yeah, I think, um, the balance between not being around people and not working with people so that they distract you, but also realizing that it's a motivating force is important. It's...

Chris Williamson 12:35 All right, so people, important, having accountability buddies, also important. Where's power? What's that? What's that come into play?

Ali Abdaal 12:40 Yeah, power, chapter two. So power is one of the key factors that drives intrinsic motivation or internal motivation. Uh, so for listeners who might not be familiar, there are broadly two types of motivation. There's extrinsic and intrinsic. So extrinsic motivation is when you are doing something because of the external reward you're gonna get as a result, or to avoid some sort of punishment. So, um, kind of doing a thing because... uh, w- working a job for the money is extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when you're doing it for its own sake. There is something about the process that's either enjoyable or that feels meaningful to you, and therefore you are doing it for internal reasons, for your own reasons. And basically all the evidence shows that in- internal or intrinsic motivation is way more powerful and durable than extrinsic motivation. And in fact, the more extrinsic motivation you have, even if you are intrinsically motivated to- to do something, extrinsic motivators often crowd out intrinsic motivators.

Chris Williamson 13:33 How so?

Ali Abdaal 13:35 It's unclear, but (sighs) I- I- I guess anecdotally from my life, I've- I've really seen this.

Chris Williamson 13:39 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 13:39 So back when my YouTube channel was a side hustle, I was intrinsically motivated to make, to make videos, and it would be fun and I'd be, you know, sharing my message and making videos, and I was ha- I was having a great time. But weirdly, as soon as sponsors starting pay- started paying lots of money for those videos, and now all of a sudden there's a deadline on the video and there is like a large amount of money attached to it, you would think that, "Oh my God, I could make $20,000 by just filming this YouTube video..."

Chris Williamson 14:04 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 14:05 ... would make it way more fun."

Chris Williamson 14:06 I get to do what I was doing before plus $20,000.

Ali Abdaal 14:08 Exactly, but what it actually feels like is, "Ugh, this thing was once fun, but now I've got a deadline, and now I've got a boss, and now I've got an overlord, and..."

Chris Williamson 14:16 You've turned your love into a labor.

Ali Abdaal 14:17 Exactly. And this is one of the problems with monetizing your hobbies, in that I feel... Uh, my- my view is that if you monetize your hobbies, um, for pocket money, that's really fun. Back when I was a magician, I used to go around university pr- doing magic tricks and balls and shit. I was paid 100 pounds here and there. That's fun. I'm not- I'm not relying on the 100 pounds to- 100 pounds to live. But if I had to be a professional magician where I was relying on that income to live, now all of a sudden magic stops being fun. And you hear musicians struggle with this all the time, like, you know, Ed Sheeran used to enjoy music, and now it's become work and he cannot relax. Like, in the evenings he has to paint because he has to find a creative outlet to recharge his energies because music is now work. So part of the problem... You know, I'm- I'm a big fan of monetizing your passions and like finding a way to make a living out of it, but there is this sort of fine line in that the motivation can sometimes become extrinsic, um, rather than intrinsic.

Chris Williamson 15:06 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 15:06 But coming back to power, power is this idea of autonomy and competence. If you feel like you have autonomy, control, responsibility over the things that you're doing, and you feel like you are actually good at the things you are doing, that leads to this feeling of empowerment, this feeling of power, which is a huge factor of intrinsic motivation.

Chris Williamson 15:22 How can people make themselves feel more autonomous? A lot of people have got some sort of accountability boss of some kind that they need to be res- reporting to.

Ali Abdaal 15:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:32 What's the solution?

Ali Abdaal 15:33 So there's like a spectrum of, uh, of autonomy. (laughs) Um, you can basically be... You can basically have control over three things. You can have control over the outcome, you- uh, you can have control over the process, and you can have control over the mindset. Outcome, process, and mindset. So a lot of people don't have control over the outcome. Like, when I was a doctor, I didn't have control over the outcome. I had to do what I was told. I couldn't just choose that. I can now as an entrepreneur and stuff, but like, you know, most people are not allowed to change things.

Chris Williamson 15:57 Like when a patient comes in to see you, and instead of diagnosing them, paint with them or something.

Ali Abdaal 16:00 Yeah, like, I'm not allowed to do that. (laughs) So I- I have to do the things that I'm told. Also, I was junior, I had to do what the seniors wanted, all this kind of stuff. But even when you don't have control over- over what you're doing, you have enormous control over how you're doing it. And so what I realized, you know, the- the first few months where I was working as a doctor, I made the mistake of thinking the way to conserve my energy is by doing the bare minimum. I made the mistake of thinking, "You know what? I'm just gonna do what, I'm just gonna do what I'm told, I'm gonna grind it out these- these couple of years, and let me just make sure I- I get home with enough energy to film my YouTube videos." But weirdly, approaching anything with that level of half-assedness really drains out energy. It is not fun. Looking at the watch is not fun. It's not a fun way to go through your workday when you're like, "Okay, I'm just gonna do what I'm told, right? I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna grind it out." And kind of the realization for me was (laughs) was weirdly on weekends, on weekend shifts, I felt weirdly more energized afterwards. Which is kind of weird because weekend shifts as a doctor are like more busy because there's fewer, there's fewer staff, there's more patients, more emergencies, shit is going on, but I felt weirdly energized. And I realized it's because on weekend shifts I was taking responsibility and I was taking more ownership of the things that I was doing. The way I was approaching my patients was thinking, "Shit, the buck kind of ends with me because I don't want to ring up the consultant, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna chase up these blood results, I'm gonna call radiology, I'm gonna do the things." And so I was working harder, but because I had... I felt like I owned the process of what I was doing, suddenly I had more energy and work became more fun and the shifts ab- absolutely flew by to the point that I was like swapping with colleagues to be like, "Hey, can I work a weekend?" Because I was like, "It's so much more fun working on a weekend."

Chris Williamson 17:34 Mm. And what about mindset?

Ali Abdaal 17:36 Mindset is... There's a really, really good blog post by Seth Godin, uh, that I've read years ago that I st- I still think, think back to, which is there is an enormous difference between, "I have to do this," and, "I get to do this." And whenever we find ourselves thinking, "Ugh, I have to do X," we can always do a reframe in our minds, "I choose to do X. I get to do X. I am blessed to be able to do X." And even just that, like, this is my single biggest practical takeaway for anyone listening to this. The next time you feel like, "Ugh, I have to do something," just change it up in your head. You don't actually have to do anything. Everything is a choice. Sure, there are consequences to all choices and all that crap, but fundamentally you are choosing to do it. And if you take that ownership and switch it around in the mind, the mind is a powerful device. The mind can... The- the way we think about something profoundly changes the way our physiology responds to it, the way our body reacts. Um...There's a- there- there's a cool- there's a cool way that sociologists measure life satisfaction. I think we were talking about this on the IFS stage. Um, for people- for people who aren't familiar, so one way of measuring life satisfaction is by giving someone a survey and being like, "How satisfied are- are you with your life?" But then, you know, people are self-aware- or not self-aware, they don't really know what- what's going on. But the other way that sociologists do it is they have a little pager, or I think it's an app these days, and they ping you a few times a day and they ask you one question. They ask you, "If you could, would you choose to fast-forward the experience that you're currently having to get to the end of it?" So for example, if you're at work, would you choose to fast-forward to- to- to- to the end of your workday? If you're on a flight, would you choose to fast-forward to the- to- to the end of the flight? If you're, I don't know, putting your kids to bed, would you choose to fast-forward that so that they're already asleep? And they look at what proportion of your day would you choose to fast-forward. And what they find is that, like, you know, the people who would choose to fast-forward a large proportion of their day, uh, you know, that's a- th- th- that is a- an indicator that actually you're not that satisfied with life because you would rather not experience-

Chris Williamson 19:27 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 19:27 ... a big chunk of your time than experience it.

Chris Williamson 19:28 Seems like a great definition.

Ali Abdaal 19:30 And so, what I've learned to do, as I- I ask myself this question a lot, if I ever find myself, like, waiting in line for something or, I don't know, I'm in an Uber and I'm like, "I just wanna get to my destination," or- or whatever the thing might be, or- or even doing work that I- I don't quite enjoy, I think, "Would I fast-forward this?" And if the answer is ever yes, I know that there is a mindset shift I need to make. Because I know that someone at- you know, if Eckhart Tolle was in that position, he would be able to-

Chris Williamson 19:54 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 19:54 ... frigging enjoy the process, so why can't I? And I find switching from, "I have to," to, "I get to," is incredible for making me feel more like I- I have autonomy, therefore I have power, therefore I feel good.

Chris Williamson 20:07 So much comes back to gratitude, man. It's like-

Ali Abdaal 20:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:09 ... it's so... Giving an answer that people already feel like they know is way less pioneering than-

Ali Abdaal 20:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:17 ... and- and- and, like, revelatory. But yeah, gratitude just seems to be such a solution. It's- it's a prophylactic against life not being the way that you want it to. Yeah, switching the-

Ali Abdaal 20:28 It's also a treatment.

Chris Williamson 20:29 Yes. Yeah, true.

Ali Abdaal 20:30 Like five minutes of gratitude journaling has the same impact as doubling your income, in terms of happiness levels.

Chris Williamson 20:34 Wow.

Ali Abdaal 20:35 And so honestly, just being more grateful, being like, "Yeah, what a time to be alive." What is that phrase from Kurt Vonnegut, which is something to the- something to the effect of, "As you go through life, remind yourself on multiple occasions, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

Chris Williamson 20:49 Naval, uh, "If you won't- if you can't be happy with coffee, you won't be happy on a yacht."

Ali Abdaal 20:53 Mm. That's awesome. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:55 Um, yeah, just... And I- I- I like the fact that, you know, you're thinking about how can we find, in the mundane, how can we find ways to not only take control from a- a performance perspective, where I know that if I switch this mindset, I will be happier, but also, it's actually the way that you enjoy your life.

Ali Abdaal 21:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:13 Like moment to moment, forgetting the outcome that you're going to get on the other side-

Ali Abdaal 21:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:16 ... of this from a productivity perspective.

Ali Abdaal 21:18 And as a side effect, you'll also be more productive. But kind of (laughs) another point of the book really is that (sighs) what I'm hoping people will do is that they will read it because they wanna be more productive-

Chris Williamson 21:26 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 21:26 ... but what they will find as a result of the b- because most of the research in here is really from positive psychology rather than from, I don't know, organizational performance design and stuff. Because what- what I found through doing all this research is, yes, I'm more productive when I feel good, but also, I am just happier and more satisfied with life.

Chris Williamson 21:43 I feel good (laughs) .

Ali Abdaal 21:44 And I feel good, and that is actually an inherent good. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 21:46 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 21:46 So the goal is not actually to get more done. The goal is to generally be more satisfied and fulfilled with life.

Chris Williamson 21:51 Well, ultimately, the reason I think that people want to be more productive is that they presume on the other side of their increased productivity would be a life that they're going to enjoy more.

Ali Abdaal 21:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:58 "I'm gonna have more fun. I'm going to be more satisfied. I'm going to be happier." Okay. Well, there is a shortcut to get there, which is just be happier-

Ali Abdaal 22:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:07 ... in the moment. Do the things that maximize happiness now, and then the productivity can either come along for the ride or not.

Ali Abdaal 22:12 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 22:12 It's so funny, man, that, you know, you- you set off to try and write this thing and begin this journey of productivity as a- a solution, first off, to being at uni and being a med student, and then being a doctor, and then being a doctor with a business, and then being a doctor with mel- m- multiple businesses. And what you ended up doing was almost completely throwing productivity out the window-

Ali Abdaal 22:31 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:31 ... and realizing that it's just one of multiple different triggers and levers that you can pull to get satisfied with life.

Ali Abdaal 22:39 Yeah, and that emotions are, like, the baseline of this whole thing. I think earlier on in my productivity bro-iness, I really, uh, uh, under-appreciated the importance of emotions, 'cause I was pretty uns... I mean, I still am to- to- to this day, pretty uns- self-aware of my own emotions and, like-

Chris Williamson 22:54 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 22:54 ... what was going on.

Chris Williamson 22:54 Yeah, me too.

Ali Abdaal 22:55 But it was when I got punched in the face with this, like, working fricking 60 hours a week in the NHS where people are dying and where I'm potentially responsible for some people dying and, like, ugh, if you make a mistake, like, you think about it all night, I was like, "Oh shit, you know, all the stoicism (laughs) has- has not prepared me for this onslaught of negative emotions."

Chris Williamson 23:11 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 23:12 And the solution to that was finding a way to make-

Ali Abdaal 23:15 to make everything feel good.

Chris Williamson 23:16 Okay, what about play?

Ali Abdaal 23:16 Which sounds cliche. Play is the first chapter. Uh, play, I think, is really fun. So, um, there's a lot of Nobel Prize winners who attribute their success to the idea of play. Um, the guys that invented graphene, uh, Richard Feynman, who invented the atomic bomb, well, who helped with the atomic bomb and then won a Nobel Prize. You know, Richard Feynman at one point was feeling totally burnt out in his career. He was a physics professor. He was like, he got all the accolades, he ticked all the boxes, but he did not enjoy physics. He- he felt burned out by it. And there's this really cool story in his- in- in his autobiography where he talks about how at the Cornell University cafeteria, a student was chucking a plate up- up in the air and Feynman noticed that the Cornell logo was, like, rotating at a slightly different rate than, like, the center of the plate or some shit like that. And he was like, "Wait a minute, why is the logo on the out of the plate rotating differently to the in- inside of the plate?" And he was like, "Uh, I don't really care. You know, I'm- you know, I'm- I'm the professor. I invented the atomic bomb. This is not- this is not- th- this is not significant." But then he kind of reminded himself that, "Actually, why did I use to enjoy physics? I used to enjoy physics because I treated it like play. I did things just for the fun of them." And so he set out to model the equations of how this bloody plate would rotate. And his colleagues were like, "Dude, what the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be the great Professor Richard Feynman, and you're, like, writing equations about a fricking wobbling plate?" And he would respond with, "I'm just doing it for the fun of it. There is no- there is no use in it whatsoever."And actually, what happened is that, A, he developed his love of physics back again, he cured his burnout, and he ended up... The- the wobbling of that plate ended up leading to the equations that helped him win the Nobel Prize.

Chris Williamson 24:44 Who's Alberto Lopez?

Ali Abdaal 24:47 Alberto Lopez is this, uh, climbing... Uh, he was one of the Olympic climbers. And rock climbing in the Olympics is, is an interesting sport because if you watch it on TV, you find that they're all, they all look really happy (laughs) , uh, which is in sharp contrast to, like, the sprinters, who look, like, really stressed, but they're focused on this one goal and they're like... Whereas rock climbers seem, seem to be having a laugh, having a joke. Even though they're competing in the Olympics and competing against each other, they're, like, kind of pointing their routes out to each other and they seem quite happy about the whole thing. And rock climbing was how, uh, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who discovered the concept of flow back in the 1970s, um, you know, this idea of flow state, he noticed that, you know, rock climbers get into this weird flow state where they feel like they're fully engaged, but this, but, but they view the stakes as being, as being low. And that combination of full engagement with sufficiently low stakes is what creates that feeling of play, and can often what create, uh, and- and often what creates that feeling of flow. And so this gets at the idea of, like, how do we experience more play in our work and in our lives? One of the big answers is just lower the stakes. So for example, Roger Federer, when he's playing the Wimbledon final, especially when he's defending his title, he probably is not feeling that playful about it, because the stakes are too high.

Chris Williamson 25:59 Serious.

Ali Abdaal 26:00 It's really serious. The stakes are too high. Whereas, you know, most of us are not in that kind of situation a lot of the time, and most of us, when it comes to our work, if we can find a way to just dial down the seriousness, approach it with a bit more sincerity, as Alan Watts would say, dial down... You know, lower the stakes, lower the bar. Think of it not as, "This is a big thing I'm trying to do," but instead think of it as, "I'm just having fun here." That is often how people perform way better and feel more playful about their work.

Chris Williamson 26:26 From a tactical perspective, how do you feel less serious about your work? Especially if you care about it. If you're the sort of person that can listen to me and you waffle on for a couple of hours about productivity, you probably care about the outcomes that you're getting in your life, which means that you might apply due or undue pressure to the outcomes that you're going to get.

Ali Abdaal 26:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:43 How can someone tactically lower the stakes?

Ali Abdaal 26:46 Okay, good question. I have, uh, three strategies. Number one is to... There- there's a great phrase from Alan Watts. He- he- he calls this, he calls it sincere, not serious. Um, no one wants to play a board game with someone who's too serious about it. It's just not fun. Like they take... You know, stickler for the rules, it- it kind of drains everyone's energy. But you also don't want to play a board game with someone who's completely uncaring, 'cause it's like, "Well, what's the fun in that? Like, they're not even trying." You want to play with someone who plays sincerely. And so I think that phrase itself, sincere, not serious, if we find ourselves feeling a bit stressed, feeling like the- the- the stakes are too high, often that's where procrastination and distraction kicks in, where we're like, "Oh, there's this emotional hurdle of like, ugh, this- this thing is... Writing a book is like a hard thing, 'cause it's a book, and a book is a big deal." That's where we find ourselves getting distracted and looking for the dopamine hit on TikTok or whatever the thing might be. Thinking, "Let me just genuinely approach this with sincerity rather than seriousness," is tactic number one that I find super helpful. Tactic number two is, by, you know, at the start of each day, I ask myself one simple question, and that question (laughs) is, "What is today's adventure going to be?" Now, this speaks to the idea, you know, in the... It's a fairly common principle in psychol- in psychology and performance research that making a plan at the start of the day is a very useful thing to do. Some people do it the night before, most people do it in the morning. If you can figure out what is your most important task, you know, Brian Tracy calls it eat that frog. What's the one thing that if you got that thing done today, today would be a win? The adventure question is basically that, but framed in the, in the language of adventure. Because if you think of anything as an adventure, you can ask yourself the question, "What would this look like if it were fun?" This is so similar to Tim Ferriss's question of, "What would it look like if it were easy?" But I reframe it as, and I literally have a Post-it Note on my computer monitor, "What would this look like if it were fun?" Because if you frame something as an adventure and just genuinely ask yourself, "How can I make this fun?" You'll... The- the mind will inevitably come up with loads of different ways to make this fun. Um, so that's another tangible thing. "What would this look like, look like if it were fun?" For me personally, what I found is that everything becomes more fun when I have background music, preferably from like Lord of the Rings, concerning hobbits, the Shire theme tune, that kind of (singing) .

Chris Williamson 28:56 The fact that you have a girlfriend continues to amaze me (laughs) .

Ali Abdaal 29:00 Mate, concerning hobbits, Lord of the Rings. When I was... So when I w- when, uh, when- when I had all these realizations around feel, feel-good productivity, I realized part of why working in, working in a doctor's office is a bit grim is because the environment is just... It's- it's not nice. It's like the NHS doesn't have much money. So I got this 20 quid Bluetooth speaker from Amazon, I attached it to the light on the ceiling, and I would just play movie soundtracks while I was wr- writing my discharge letters. And initially, the consultants would come in and be like, "What the hell's going on here?" But then they would be like, "Oh, I get it. Yeah, it's Harry Potter, it's Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean." They would recognize some of the songs, you know, a bit of, I don't know, doing the Hans Zimmer every- every now and then. And even just having music in the background makes it feel more playful, just makes it more fun.

Chris Williamson 29:42 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:43 And so what I'm trying to do here is encourage people. We can all... Like, yes, not everything has to be fun all the time. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, we can always find ways to make everything we're doing just a little bit more fun.

Chris Williamson 29:53 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:53 Approach it with a little bit more play. And yes, that means we'll- we'll- we'll be more productive, but that's also not the point. The point is we'll just feel better about life.

Chris Williamson 30:01 Yeah, it's... I- I'd love to get you to sit down with Hormozi, uh, at some point maybe over the next year. I'll- I'll manage to get a round table between us for dinner or something, because Alex seems to deprioritize... He- he finds fun in, in the grind.

Ali Abdaal 30:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:13 Um, but it's... His, uh, like executive function and grind muscle is so hypertrophied that he's just prepared to continue to smash that lever.

Ali Abdaal 30:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 30:23 Um, but I would be interested to know what would happen if you took, uh, an inventory of his, or an MOT of his particular productivity work setup-

Ali Abdaal 30:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:34 ... and said, "Hey, why don't we try, like, giving you a window? Or why don't we try like this, or that, or the other?" I'd be very interested to know...... just how robust, whether there's people for whom this doesn't, uh, apply quite so much, something tells me that we need to be careful taking, uh, global advice from people that are absolute outliers within their performance. It seems like this is a much more, like, normie, middle of the bell curve-

Ali Abdaal 30:57 Yeah, definitely.

Chris Williamson 30:57 ... robust, like, solution. You know what I mean? Like, you know, lots and lots of the people that we know that are outliers would still benefit from this.

Ali Abdaal 31:04 Yeah. Uh, I think that's, this is where, you know, I've, I've, I've listened to your interview with David Goggins. I've read both of, listened to both his books. They're great. I love, I love the guy. But David Goggins' thing, I think, is like, he- he's an outlier there. Where everything is about discipline. You know, Huberman was telling a story about how Goggins woke, wa- up at 3:00 in the morning and just ge- genuinely going for a run, because that's the, the sort of guy he is. And what I worry about is that normal people, who are not David Goggins will then think, "Oh, fuck, I'm just not disciplined enough. I just need to get more disciplined. I just need to grind harder, I just need to wake up earlier," and all that, all that stuff. And for a very small subset of people, that works. But for most people, you know, human psychology is not geared towards continuing to push yourself and, you know, wake up at three o'clock in the morning just so you can go for a run and continue to cause pain to yourse-... Like, Goggins freaking runs Ironmans with broken legs. Human psychology is not geared for that.

Chris Williamson 31:54 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 31:54 And it's as literally trying to pl- it's, it's like trying to play Life on Hard Mode. And I think, I love the message that David Goggins shares, but it's also not realistic for a lot, for a lot of people. Like, a lot of us, broadly, if you ask people why they do what they do, they, they do the things that feel good. No one struggles with discipline or motivation to watch Netflix or to play video games or to hang out with friends.

Chris Williamson 32:15 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 32:15 'Cause it just freaking feels good. You probably don't struggle with discipline and motivation to do podcasts because it feels good to you.

Chris Williamson 32:20 Correct.

Ali Abdaal 32:21 I, most of the time, don't struggle with discipline or motivation to make YouTube videos or to write because it feels good to me. I actually do struggle with podcasts, especially over Zoom, and I find that drains my energy, and which is why I'm less motivated by that. I struggle with the gym because I've yet to find a way to make it feel good consistently, especially while traveling.

Chris Williamson 32:37 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 32:37 We do the things that feel good. And so if we care about work, we, we can find ways of making whatever matters to us feel good.

Chris Williamson 32:44 Well, you can see-

Ali Abdaal 32:44 And it's a more robust way of, yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:45 Y- yeah, you could imagine feeling good as a, a force multiplier to your discipline, like that you have this tank of it-

Ali Abdaal 32:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:52 ... and you can get either one mile per gallon or 100 miles per gallon based on, are you driving uphill, i.e., not enjoying it, or are you driving downhill, i.e., this is enjoyable to me?

Ali Abdaal 33:02 Absolutely. Yeah, I think this is where discipline comes. So th- th- this is how I square this idea of discipline, 'cause I, I do value discipline. I think with any task, uh, it's, it's, it's e- e- exactly this hill analogy that, that you're talking about that I think of it. If you, if you enjoy the process, it feels like, like going downhill. If you don't enjoy the process, it feels like going uphill. Going uphill obviously requires you to exert will, exert willpower and discipline over the long term. But the, the key thing is, before anything, there's a bit of a hump. Even before something that feels good, there's a bit of a hump. Like, for you, going to the gym feels good, but still a bit of a hump to actually just get there, because maybe you're feeling a bit tired.

Chris Williamson 33:36 Yep. Waking up on a morning, yep.

Ali Abdaal 33:38 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 33:38 It's always cold, I gotta wait for the Uber.

Ali Abdaal 33:39 And as long as we are employing discipline to just get over the hump, that is a great use of discipline, because that is very sustainable, like, just using discipline in small doses to get started with a thing that you wanna do.

Chris Williamson 33:48 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 33:49 But to use discipline and willpower to keep going with the thing that you wanna do, oh, that's so draining, that's so taxing.

Chris Williamson 33:54 Yeah, we definitely need to be careful. And dude, I, you know, I- I've contributed to this. I've sat down and nodded at David Goggins and Hormozi and Jocko as they've said things that are similar to this. But we do need to be careful about the heroic narrative that discipline in face of misery and suffering gives.

Ali Abdaal 34:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:11 Right? Because it is a heroic narrative, and there will be days when life comes and smashes you in the face-

Ali Abdaal 34:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:17 ... and when you needs to have built up that discipline muscle sufficiently. But finding the balance between that not being so atrophied that it can't be deployed-

Ali Abdaal 34:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:28 ... but you not using it unnecessarily when there is a simpler, more enjoyable route-

Ali Abdaal 34:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:33 ... toward achieving the outcome that you want is, is very, very difficult. And it can't be synthesized into, do hard things even when you, or especially when you don't feel like it, right?

Ali Abdaal 34:43 Right.

Chris Williamson 34:43 Like, it's, I can't Hamsa this into a meme.

Ali Abdaal 34:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:46 Um, but it is. It's holding two relatively conflicting views in your mind at, at the same time. Discipline is important, and I should-

Ali Abdaal 34:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:52 ... conti- continue to use it so it doesn't evaporate, and I should use discipline as little as possible-

Ali Abdaal 34:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:58 ... in my day-to-day life by trying to design the things that I do to be as enjoyable as possible so that discipline is not something I rely on. It just happens easily and naturally to me.

Ali Abdaal 35:07 Absolutely. I think there's, you know, I'd be, I'd, I'd be interested to get Hormozi's take on this, but one thing that he said that really struck with me is, "When I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire. When I was a millionaire, I wanted to be 20."

Chris Williamson 35:18 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 35:19 And, you know, I'm a millionaire now, and I actually don't wanna be 20 because I feel like I enjoyed the process of getting there. And I would love to live my life not wanting to go back, because actually, I have just enjoyed every step of the journey. Probably means I'm not gonna be as successful as Hormozi is financially, but I mean, that's not-

Chris Williamson 35:40 But, uh, depends on what the criteria of success is, bro.

Ali Abdaal 35:42 ... that's not my goal, yeah, so... (laughs) Depends, absolutely depends on what the criteria of success is. Uh-

Chris Williamson 35:45 I'm sure Alex will have a more nuanced take on this, but, and it, obviously, I, I get that. You know, it's, it's a nice quote. It's a nice soundbite. I, I do vibe with the sentiment behind it. But I think enjoying the journey while also striving towards whatever goals you have is literally the point.

Ali Abdaal 35:57 Yeah. Uh, “What are you optimizing for?” is just such a great question. Uh, my newsletter a couple of weeks ago, I had Morgan Housel on the show, and the guy's just fucking phenomenal, right?

Chris Williamson 36:06 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 36:06 This (clears throat) quote that I've been playing with for a long time from Sapolsky, Huberman shared it, "Dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness. It is about the happiness of pursuit." Oh.

Chris Williamson 36:17 Nice. (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 36:17 "So much of life and enjoyment is about the anticipation of things coming. In fact, the anticipation is oft- often actually more enjoyable than the experience itself. Tim Ferriss used to book weeklong holidays years and years in advance so that he could get as much enjoyment out of the anticipation as he could. This puts a new perspective on, it's not the journey, it's the destination. There actually is no destination. Each arrival at a destination simply marks the beginning of another journey toward the next destination." Morgan Housel told me on the show the other week-

Chris Williamson 36:46 He planned this big holiday with his family for a long time, they've got kids, they finally did it after booking time off from Collaborative Fund and from his writing and wife and children and travel and all the rest of it. He arrives at this hotel, and on the first night that he arrives there, he steps out onto the balcony of this place he's been planning for ages, and the first thought in his mind was, "It'd be so good if we came back here next year. Like, this place would be so good to come back to next year." So literally during the experience of the destination-

Ali Abdaal 37:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:12 ... he was artificially creating another journey already.

Ali Abdaal 37:16 I, I had a really, I- I had, I had a really stark realization of this in a really trivial way recently. Um, one of the... (laughs) Okay, uh, there's a few, a few different reasons. So o- o- one of the questions I think about a lot is, what would I do if money were no object? And if money were no object, how would I change how I spend my time? And one of the things that I often land on is, I'd actually probably play more video games. You know, I really enjoyed video games when I was a kid, I'd love to, you know, have a bit more time to- to play video games. And I was mentioning this to- to my team who were- who were traveling with me, and they were like, "Yeah, but y- you don't play video games that much. Like, what's- what's- what's going on there?" But I spend a lot of time anticipating the joy of playing video games.

Chris Williamson 37:55 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 37:56 And I- I get so much joy out of like, "You know what? I- I wanna buy the highest end gaming laptop imaginable." It's, is it the Razer Blade 18-inch or the Alienware 18-inch? I can afford that now 'cause-

Chris Williamson 38:05 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 38:05 ... you know, I've got- I've got merch. Gotta buy my book, please.

Chris Williamson 38:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 38:08 Um, but in the past, I was salivating over like a £5,000 gaming PC, and the anticipation of six months of doing the research and watching the videos were so joyful.

Chris Williamson 38:18 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 38:18 And when I got it, I was like, "I mean, I'm never gonna turn this thing on because I actually have more- more fun in my work." So there's something profound about, like even now, I know that if I buy this laptop, I actually won't use it-

Chris Williamson 38:29 All of the enjoyment's gonna stop.

Ali Abdaal 38:30 All the enjoyment goes away, I'm like, "Okay, well, I- I guess I've gotta play video games now."

Chris Williamson 38:33 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 38:33 But- but the anticipation of like, I could buy it whenever I want, is- is a thing I'm holding onto (laughs) because it's just free happiness points for literally zero cost.

Chris Williamson 38:41 Yeah. Well, that Tim Ferriss hack of booking holidays years and years in advance-

Ali Abdaal 38:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:45 ... so good. You know? There- there was a- a study done on, uh, I think it was British clubbers. So the same way that they pinged people's phones in your earlier example-

Ali Abdaal 38:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:55 ... asking, "What's your level of..." Oh, would you fast-forward, this one was, "How happy are you?" You'd think throughout the entirety of the day, leading up to the night out, then the night out, you know, it might be 12:00 midnight, before they're so drunk they can't remember anything, but just as the DJ starts to really ramp the setup and the lights are going and the bottle service is in or whatever it might be, but it wasn't. The time that they had the most fun throughout the entirety of their day and night of a night out, was when they were getting ready together in the house. It was in anticipation of the event, it was not the event itself. And just continuing to remind myself, dopamine is not about the happiness, it's not about the pursuit of happiness, it's about the happiness of pursuit. Right?

Ali Abdaal 39:34 Mm.

Chris Williamson 39:34 Like, you have to find enjoyment in the journey, because there is no destination. Every single time that you reach a destination, it's just the waymarker of the next journey that you're going to do.

Ali Abdaal 39:45 And even in the sort of, people often say that like, "Oh, you know, you shifted the goalpost when you got there." But you actually be- can become a totally different person en route to the destination. Like, if someone is trying to, I don't know, make money on the side, and they're like, "Oh my God," like, (sighs) "If- if- if only I could make $2,000 a month of ex- of- of passive income, that would completely change my life." It's like, yeah, it would. But by the time you get to $1,500 a month, uh, $1,500 a month of passive income, you have become a fundamentally different person. You have a new set of skills, you have a new set of hopes, beliefs, expectations, you have way more self-confidence, and now suddenly 2K doesn't seem like much. You're like, "Hmm, 10K."

Chris Williamson 40:20 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 40:20 "I know people who have 10K a month passive income." And by the time you get there, you're like, "Well, you know, that's not 100K."

Chris Williamson 40:25 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:25 And the goalpost keeps on shifting. And actually, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We just need to recognize it for what it is and recognize that (laughs) as- as you say, fundamentally, the journey is the destination.

Chris Williamson 40:34 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:34 So.

Chris Williamson 40:35 All right. What about seek clarity? Why is clarity

Chris Williamson 40:37 important?

Ali Abdaal 40:37 Clarity. So, the first third of the book is about, how do we find ways to energize us and make things feel more enjoyable? So play, power, and people. Uh, the second third is about, how do we beat procrastination? And there are basically three core blockers that cause us to pro- procrastinate from stuff. Uncertainty, fear, and inertia. And so seeking clarity is really about that first step. If- if someone has the goal of, "I wanna get fit," what the hell does that mean? Like, they're gonna procrastinate on that for their entire life, because they have no idea what get fit actually means. Like who- who knows? How do you break that down? Students, if they have a goal of like, "I wanna revise for my chemistry exam," it's like, okay, but what does that mean? Are you reading a textbook? Are you doing some practice papers? Like, there's a lot of mental cognitive friction involved in trying to figure out what the hell you're actually trying to do. And the point around clarity is that if you're ever struggling with procrastination, just ask yourself, (laughs) "Am I actually clear on what I need to do here? Am I clear on why I'm doing it? And am I clear on when I'm gonna do it?" What, why, and when. And if we can just get clear on those three things, that will cure procrastination for the vast majority of people. What's the goal? (laughs) Why is that the goal? And okay, cool, what's the next action? And when- and, you know, when am I gonna do it? Which is why I'm so bullish on just putting a thing in the calendar. 'Cause once it- once it's in the calendar, at least then you have sorted the clarity point. And now if you're still procrastinating from it, now there's probably some emotional issues that we have to deal with. But like, at least let's just get it in the calendar and define what the task actually is.

Chris Williamson 42:03 So that's the first step from a tactical perspective for you?

Ali Abdaal 42:06 Absolutely, yeah. It's- it's gotta be in the calendar. I think one of the best time management strategies I've ever found is something called the ideal week. Where, you know, a lot of people say that- that they don't have time, they have a never-ending to-do list. Um, the ideal week is basically where you create a blank Google Calendar, you call it your ideal week, and you just block out, what does your ideal week look like? When would you like to wake up? When would you like to sleep? When are your gym times? When are- when are your date nights? When are you at work? And you realize of- by- by doing this that A, you have more time than you realize, and also you have less time than you realize. Because if you wanted to do those 18 projects on your to-do list, and someone listening to this is probably, uh, you know, product- somewhat productivity minded, wants to get a lot of things done at a very high level, you realize there are simply not enough hours in the day.And that's okay. That means you can now eliminate the things that really don't matter in focus of the things that really do. Um, and so the ideal week is a way of figuring out, do I actually have a manageable number of things on my plate? And once you do, putting them in your actual calendar is a way of making sure you've made the time for the thing.

Chris Williamson 43:06 Have you thought about how people can learn to say no more effectively?

Ali Abdaal 43:10 Yeah, we've got some stuff in the book around this. This is something I- I- I really struggle with. I love Derek Sivers' thing of, "Hell yeah or no." If- if it's not a hell yeah, then it's- then it's a no. I love the idea of never saying yes, uh, over- over the phone or in person, and always being like-

Chris Williamson 43:23 That's Daniel Kahneman's thing, right?

Ali Abdaal 43:24 It is, yeah. He never says yes over the phone. (laughs) "Let me check my calendar and get back to you." I love to offload things to be like, "You know what? Let me just ch- check with my team because they manage my calendar, because then I'm not the bad guy in saying no to the thing." Um-

Chris Williamson 43:35 Do you think you're a people pleaser?

Ali Abdaal 43:37 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 43:37 Yeah, me too. It's so bad, dude.

Ali Abdaal 43:39 Oh, really?

Chris Williamson 43:39 Yeah, it's so bad. I've only just realized this recently. I- I started doing therapy for the first time properly in-person in Austin.

Ali Abdaal 43:45 Mm.

Chris Williamson 43:45 The lady that I'd started working with worked with a friend who is way, way, way more of a bastard than I am.

Ali Abdaal 43:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:51 And I figured, if she can deal with his shit, she can definitely deal with my shit. So he was the canary in the coal mine. And, uh, yeah, I just... I don't know. I think, I think I probably... if I'd done enough self-assessment, I would have realized that I was a people pleaser.

Ali Abdaal 44:03 Mm.

Chris Williamson 44:03 But, um, it... I think it felt a bit emasculating to realize. It felt like, I don't know, cucked or agreeable or feminine-

Ali Abdaal 44:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:11 ... or something that I just didn't like the idea of. And there's still a lot with me of a vestigial, like, um, compensatory mechanisms from feeling weak in school.

Ali Abdaal 44:22 Mm.

Chris Williamson 44:22 Uh, from being fragile and bullied and stuff in school. So I- I don't want to show that... Like new... The vulnerabilities that I already have, I'm happy to accept.

Ali Abdaal 44:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:30 But new ones, well, no, no, no, no, no, 'cause that's just another piece on the pile of, you might be a fragile, weak piece of shit, right?

Ali Abdaal 44:37 Mm.

Chris Williamson 44:37 Um, but this was a new one, and it stared me in the face for long enough during sessions where I was like, "Right, okay, I can't, I can't fucking... I can't escape this." I hate telling people bad news, I hate disappointing people.

Ali Abdaal 44:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:46 I somehow managed to find a way to be able to blame myself for something which was evidently somebody else's fault. Let's say that someone in the team messes up and gets something wrong, and it was completely on them. I feel bad about telling them that they did something bad because it's gonna make them feel bad, and I don't want them to feel bad, even though it was their fucking fault, right?

Ali Abdaal 45:04 Yeah, I know what you mean. Mate, I have exactly the same... Like, how- how- how are you dealing with this? Any tips? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:09 Um, a couple of the things that have helped a lot for me, uh, the big productions that I've done in person are, uh, sufficiently high stakes that they've pushed the boundary of what I'm prepared to expect from people. Uh, so for instance, we did, what, seven episodes in three days in London a couple of weeks ago. I need the guys to be on the ball for that, and I also need to be able to get people to do things that I can't do. Like, if I'm hungry and I need a sandwich, I need to shout, "Yo, can someone get me a sandwich?" Like, that previously would have been like, "Who the fuck am I to ask for a sandwich?"

Ali Abdaal 45:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:44 "What is this? Like, do... Oh, can you come and feed me grapes and fan me with a leaf?" But, like, just formative experiences where you need to make commands-

Ali Abdaal 45:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:53 ... and demands of other people, that's one. Another one has been, um, more of a realization that the standards that you hold yourself to are the minimum standard that you should hold everybody else to as well, right? Like, I know that I work hard. For all the... there's a current trend on the internet of, uh, laying all of my success at the feet of either Love Island or the way that I look, given that this is-

Ali Abdaal 46:14 Oh, really? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:14 Yeah. I- I did a trigonometry episode, and they decided to call it, uh, like, The Truth About Confidence. And, um, it triggered some people on the internet.

Ali Abdaal 46:22 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:22 Which was hilarious. Uh, given... especially given the fact that this is a podcast which is bigger on audio, literally where my face doesn't exist, than on YouTube (laughs) where it does. Anyway...

Ali Abdaal 46:32 Yeah, but your YouTube banner is like you doing that, so like

Chris Williamson 46:34 That's true, but that's... that's not on Spotify. It's just my fucking head. Anyway, um, that insight around... I know that I work really, really hard. I know that the standards that I hold myself to are very high. So saying, "Okay, I should expect other people to at least be in the same universe as me," shouldn't be something that you feel guilty about. It's like, look, if the guy that's a... one component within a team, whether you're the top of the tree, or, you know, at the bottom of the tree, it doesn't matter, but if you're working hard, you can quite happily expect other people to be like, "Hey, I did it."

Ali Abdaal 47:11 Mm.

Chris Williamson 47:12 "My stuff was done on time." Right? So setting an example, I think, as a people pleaser is, is good. If you're a people pleaser who also doesn't work hard, that's gonna be a tough circle to square-

Ali Abdaal 47:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:22 ... because you're not going to be able to set an example and to say, "Hey, I did it. My stuff was done on time." Right? Um, helping other people understand why you're doing it. So as a good example, there's a couple of... uh, a couple of times where Dean had booked to go away at, like, bad times of the year, uh, not through any fault of his own, and then we started to apply a lot more work to him. And I was like, "Hey, dude, um, me and Chase got our stuff done. You didn't get your stuff done." Right? Like, this is... this is just fact. And he was like, "Man, I- I- I do not want to be the bottleneck. I'll fix it." And I was like, "Ah, that was a nice way to get past it." So using yourself, not in a like, "Mate, I've already got my..." you know.

Ali Abdaal 48:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:03 Not sort of making people feel belittled, but starting 10 toes forward, and like, "I am doing my things. Everybody else needs to follow along behind that."

Ali Abdaal 48:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:14 That seems to be a good... a good route too. But it's hard, man. The people pleasing thing for me is like, I find it hard to, uh, upset people on the podcast. I find it hard to tell people in my personal life things that they don't want to hear. Uh, all of the... You- you-

Ali Abdaal 48:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:27 It looks like it's resonating with your soul.

Ali Abdaal 48:29 Mate, 100%. Yeah, this is literally a... I'm- I'm- I'm in the midst of some, like, family drama that's literally a result of me wanting to, you know-

Chris Williamson 48:38 People please.

Ali Abdaal 48:38 If- if someone is upset with me, then my default is like, "Shit, let me try and do whatever I can to fix it." And-

Chris Williamson 48:43 Not, "Hey, you're in the wrong."

Ali Abdaal 48:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:45 "I'm not supposed to fucking apologize for this."

Ali Abdaal 48:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:48 Yeah, it's... it's rough, man. I've got, um, Dr. Robert Glover, No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Ali Abdaal 48:51 Oh, nice. I love that book. I've read it...I read it every few years, and I always keep highlighting the shit out of it and doing the exercises.

Chris Williamson 48:55 I've got him coming on in January.

Ali Abdaal 48:57 So good. Ah.

Chris Williamson 48:57 Um, so, yeah, I'm looking forward to speaking to him. Maybe he'll be the answer. But I... As with most things, man, you know, you become aware of something about yourself that you're maybe not that happy with, and then you obsess about it, and you think, "Oh my God, this is like one of the defining characteristics of my pathology as a human." And then you realize, "Oh no, this is just one ingredient in the entire meal of the things that are wrong with me."

Ali Abdaal 49:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:21 Um, but yeah, I...

Ali Abdaal 49:22 But that's also okay, 'cause people love you for who you are.

Chris Williamson 49:24 Of all of the different maladies and stuff that you could have, being a people pleaser isn't the worst. But I do think that it'll be interesting for me and you to check in in a couple of years time and be like, "Hey, how's the people pleasing thing going?" Uh, you definitely get... You know, you look at older people, and they're a bit more grumpy sometimes, uh, and they seem to be less people pleasey. So, maybe it's just gonna come along for the ride as a byproduct of getting older. I don't know. Uh...

Ali Abdaal 49:46 One point on the, on the therapy thing. So, um, our mutual friend, Bill Perkins-

Chris Williamson 49:49 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 49:49 ... when we were... Uh, I hung out with him in-

Chris Williamson 49:51 Yep.

Ali Abdaal 49:52 ... in Austin.

Chris Williamson 49:52 When I... When we tried to teach you to wake surf.

Ali Abdaal 49:54 Yeah. That, that was a real fail. Uh, I don't know. I think if I do it the second time around, the muscle memory will kick, will kick in.

Chris Williamson 50:00 Damn right.

Ali Abdaal 50:00 But I, I was, I was asking him... You know, 'cause obviously I love Die With Zero, made a video about it, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, loved your interview with him, by the way.

Chris Williamson 50:06 Thank you.

Ali Abdaal 50:06 That, actually, that interview with him was a direct result of why I'm currently like digital nomading around the world.

Chris Williamson 50:10 Wow.

Ali Abdaal 50:11 'Cause before that interview I was like, "Oh, I'll just rent a home base in London and be based in London." After that interview I was like, "I need to freaking go for it." Like, life experiences.

Chris Williamson 50:18 This is the last time 'cause I'll have kids and blah, blah, blah.

Ali Abdaal 50:20 Yeah. (laughs) So now I do not-

Chris Williamson 50:20 Yeah. Well, I mean, the only reason that he came on the podcast is 'cause of your video about him.

Ali Abdaal 50:24 Oh, no way. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:25 I learned about the book from your YouTube channel, brought Bill on the show. Bill smashed it. Bill then changed your digital nomad thing, and as a part of your digital nomad thing, you came to Austin, where I introduced you to Bill Perkins.

Ali Abdaal 50:34 And then when we were in Austin, and on his freaking boat, I asked him, "What are the biggest ROI purchases of his life?" And he said, "Hands down, couples therapy."

Chris Williamson 50:41 Relationship coach. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 50:41 And so I've now started couple... Like, literally the following week, I started working with a couples therapist, uh, slash relationships coach. It has been absolutely phenomenally game-changing. I cannot recommend it highly enough to literally anyone. If you're in a relationship, then doing relationship coaching with someone who's a professional, who's experienced the full gamut of all of the shit that couples talk about and struggle with, is just incredibly helpful.

Chris Williamson 51:05 What's it done for you? Why is it so useful?

Ali Abdaal 51:07 It's really useful because it's given me tools to have conversations that I just didn't really have before. I think there are some people who are really... There are some couples who are just amazing at communication by default. Very few. Like most couples do not say, "Oh my God, we communicate so much. Like, we're just so good at communication." Literally every couple says like, "Yeah man, relationships are hard. Communication is the main thing." And so one of those things is like... You know, it's gonna sound potentially simple, but, um, listening out for the, listening out for the needs behind what the other person is feeling. Like if the other person is upset with anything, or sad, or angry, frustrated or hurt, any of these emotions, there is always a core need that they have that is not being met. And instead of kind of talking at the level of, is the fridge door left open or closed, or is, is... Well, are we going here or there? It's like, what, what's the core need? Does she have... Oh, she has a need for feeling empowered when it comes to decision-making. Ah, okay. So now that we know what the need is... And then usually if, if you describe a need to someone, they're like, "Yeah, that's it." Like, "I have a need for fairness and contribution in the relationship." And when we kind of landed on that, on those two needs, that was... That, that really... I was like, "Yeah, that's literally it." Like, those two needs explain a lot of my behaviors in relationships and outside of relationships.

Chris Williamson 52:29 Without the other person's perspective, presumably you would just get caught up at what the problems are at the top, not what the subtext is that's sits below it.

Ali Abdaal 52:36 Exactly. And this is where I think, you know... (laughs) I, I, I would say my IQ is reasonable, but my EQ is probably lower than I would like it to be.

Chris Williamson 52:43 Right.

Ali Abdaal 52:43 It's a thing, a thing I'm working on. And so, when my girlfriend and I would have issues around like, I don't know, planning a trip, I would get caught up in the level of like, "Okay, but, you know, I've got my book coming out, and you know, it's important for me that we go to LA to do this podcast," or, you know, all this sort of stuff. But when I realized that she has a need to feel empowered in decision-making, I'm like, "Oh, I can just get her involved in the decision-making about this."

Chris Williamson 53:04 Where do you wanna go?

Ali Abdaal 53:05 Where do you wanna go?

Chris Williamson 53:05 I'll find a podcast that's in that city.

Ali Abdaal 53:07 Yeah. But also like, hey, let's approach this as a team, as a conversation, rather than me doing all the working in my head-

Chris Williamson 53:13 Dictatorship.

Ali Abdaal 53:13 ... and coming... So, (laughs) this is another big realization. If someone were to say to me, if my partner were to say to me, "Ali, you know, for the next three months, I've got everything planned. Don't you worry about it. Like, just come along for the ride and, you know, life's gonna be great. We're gonna go to South East Asia." I would think, "Thank the Lord. That's incredible. I love that someone else is making the, making the decisions here. I can focus on my work, which is the thing I care about. Life is good." Whereas for my girlfriend, that same arrangement makes her feel disempowered and is therefore terrible.

Chris Williamson 53:40 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 53:41 And so a lot of the couples therapy and relationship coaching is recognizing that the patterns of thought that we think are so natural to us are absolutely not necessarily natural for the other person, and just understanding that. It's like, "Oh, okay, you have a need for connection, and that is solved by having a cuddle in the morning for a minute."

Chris Williamson 53:59 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 53:59 Great. That's easy enough. Or like, you know, hugging when we greet each other. It's not a thing that I would naturally do, but-

Chris Williamson 54:03 Is that in the calendar?

Ali Abdaal 54:04 Not yet. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:05 Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle in the morning, one minute.

Ali Abdaal 54:07 It's, it's, it's in the habit tracker. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:08 Right. Okay.

Ali Abdaal 54:09 Um, so it's just been super, super helpful in that, and on, on that front, just as, as a way of us being better at communicating. Would recommend.

Chris Williamson 54:15 What about sustaining?

Chris Williamson 54:17 So, you know, what we've spoken about, finding a way to make things more enjoyable, overcoming procrastination, but then doing this a long, a long period of time. You know, the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your working life, your creative life is-

Ali Abdaal 54:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:32 ... what really matters. I think I, I heard you say on a podcast recently, um, the reason that you'd been successful was a combination of a tiny little bit of talent, mostly luck and good timing with consistency.

Ali Abdaal 54:44 Pretty much. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:45 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 54:46 Yeah. This is the thing. So, anyone can be, who, super productive or super disciplined for a short amount of time.

Chris Williamson 54:52 January.

Ali Abdaal 54:52 Yeah, January. (laughs) Or like the first two weeks of January. Very few of us can actually sustain that unless we really put effort into what does consistency and sustainable, sustainability look like.Um, one of my favorite Morgan Housel, uh, Morgan Housel quotes is, "I'm not going to do anything unless I can do it forever." Um, that's a really good way of thinking about it. Um, and so they kind of boiled it down to three things, three tools that help combat burnout and let, lead to more sustainability and productivity, and it's conserve, recharge, and align, and each of these three strategies tackles a different aspect of burnout. So broadly, three, three, three different types of burnout. There is, uh, overexertion burnout, you're just trying to do too much shit, depletion burnout, where your energy levels are so low and you're not giving yourself the chance to replenish your energy levels, and then misalignment burnout, which is sometimes the hardest one to deal with, which is where everything seems to be going well, but actually what the actions you are taking in the here and now are not aligned with the future that you actually intrinsically want for yourself. Maybe it, it's something other people are expecting of you or whatever the thing might be. And so those three things really stop stuff from being sustainable.

Chris Williamson 56:04 Conserve, how do we do that?

Ali Abdaal 56:05 Conserve is basically about recognizing that, A, we need to limit the amount of things that we're doing, because (laughs) one of, one, one of the issues with to-do lists is that, uh, they are infinite. (laughs) And you can always keep adding stuff to a to-do list, and so a lot of people who all wanna be high performers and productivity bros and stuff will just keep adding things to their, to, to their to-do list and think, "You know what? I've, I've got to juggle these balls in the air." But one of the things I love about Oliver Burkeman's philosophy from Four Thousand Weeks is there is simply too much shit to do, and you will never have enough time for any of it, uh, for, for all of it. Therefore, you have to make some sacrifices. Um, the way I, I personally do this is, you know, this ideal week method. If it doesn't fit in the ideal week, I don't have time for it. Um, but also something that I call the energy investment portfolio, which is basically, I have a long bucket list in a sort of Kanban board, but you can do it however you want. I have a long bucket list of things I would like to do, and then I have a very short list of the three to five things I'm actually putting, I'm actually investing energy into right now. And so back in the day, I made the mistake in lockdown of like, "Yeah, I've got so much time. I'm gonna have guitar lessons and singing lessons and piano lessons and art lessons 'cause I wanna learn all this stuff. Let me try and learn some Japanese on, on the side." Just doing too much stuff. Um, m- making focused progress in a few, (laughs) in a few small dir- in, in a few small, s- small number of things is way more effective than trying to, you know, make 1,000, uh, uh, one mile of progress in 1,000 different directions.

Chris Williamson 57:25 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 57:25 So a big part of Conserve is actually just this, this thing of learning to say no and getting things off our plate. Um, I really like a strategy, uh, that's called the, uh, the six-week trap, which is if you imagine yourself, someone's asking you for, to do a thing, but it's more than six weeks out. Look at your calendar. More than six weeks out, it's pretty chill, right? The calendar's looking pretty blank. Oh, glorious. Yeah, I'm around. I can totally do that thing. And obviously (laughs) the time rolls around. The calendar's gotten full up again. You're completely overwhelmed, and you're like, "Fuck, I shouldn't have said yes to that thing."

Chris Williamson 57:56 It's like if you wouldn't do it tomorrow, don't say yes for in six months time.

Ali Abdaal 57:59 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 57:59 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 58:00 Um, and so Conserve is really, A, about, uh, (laughs) kind of limiting the number of things that we're doing, and B, also kind of on a micro level, actually just focusing on one thing at a time. This is, again, the classic stuff that everyone knows, but, uh, you know, the idea of, um, kind of switching costs and attention residues, switching between multiple tasks means you are just less efficient at each of them, and you're draining... You're, you're wasting a lot of energy by not being, by not doing things one at a time. Um, and so the, the, the basic stuff that people know, but like, you know, I find myself... I was, I was reading the audiobook for this a couple, couple weeks ago, and it was really the thir- the final three chapters where I was like, "Oh my God, I need to take my own advice."

Chris Williamson 58:41 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 58:41 'Cause I was feeling overwhelmed. I had too much stuff on my calendar. I felt all of it was important, but it really wasn't. And as I was narrating the audiobook for those chapters, I was, I was like, "Okay, action point there, action point there. Let me actually do this." (laughs) So that's Conserve.

Chris Williamson 58:53 It's strange. I mean, even just that insight that the guy who wrote the book doesn't always necessarily take the advice that he wrote down I think is, is good for people to know. It's important for people to know, because one of the problems that some people that listen to this podcast tell me about is, "I hear all of these great strategies, and I get overwhelmed with how many of the different things there are that I could do-"

Ali Abdaal 59:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:17 "... that I could apply to my own life, and it seems like everybody else has got their shit together." It's like, look, let me promise you, I've been around some of the most famous, successful, high-status people on the planet, and it's idiots all the way up.

Ali Abdaal 59:27 Yep.

Chris Williamson 59:27 Right? It's people who do not know what they're doing. They haven't gotten... Everyone is trying their best and failing.

Ali Abdaal 59:33 That's the one. I was listening to, uh, Mark Manson's interview with Morgan Housel yesterday on a run, because part of my thing is like, "I wanna, I wanna do 30 minutes of exercise each day." And one of the things that Mark said was, you know, once he became rich and had all these problems around, like, status and money and things like that, you know, boo-hoo, he read his book, and he realized, "Oh, shit, all of the principles in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck apply to this exact situation that I'm currently in. I just didn't realize it," and so took his own advice, so. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 59:57 So the book that made him famous and successful contained in it the answers to the problems of his fame and success.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:04 Exactly, and he didn't realize that until like a couple of years after suffering through the, what is it, suffering, (laughs) you know, suffering from the problems with fame and success.

Chris Williamson 1:00:09 Yeah, I mean, the ap- the application of stuff, the application of these ideas, of everything that we go through. This is why I love, uh, Tim Ferriss's idea, the good shit sticks. It's like the most robust way, I think, to get over the guilt of your external brain Evernote not being perfectly optimized or, you know, your fucking Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, Anki spaced repetition thing not reminding you of all of the quotes that you want to... It's like, look, if there's something from one podcast a week or one book per month-

Ali Abdaal 1:00:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:42 ... that you can't stop thinking about, that's the thing. Right? That is the thing. It's self-selected for it, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:00:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:49 ... memetic evolution inside of your own mind. That's the thing that you need to work on. What can you not stop telling people about, screen recording it, sending it in group chats, it's written on a Post-it Note? Like, that's the thing. The good shit will stick. Everything else can fall away. Again, this is like, um, it's like feel-good productivity. It's like feel resonance, uh, like,... uh, progression.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:09 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:10 Right? What is the thing that you can't stop thinking about? That's the thing you can focus on, 'cause it's the easiest thing for you to not- not stop thinking about.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:16 Yeah. And I think this point around like, you know, f- uh, (sighs) you know, there's- in- in this book, initially there was twice as long and there were twice as many strategies, and our editor was like, "Bro, we need to cut them down." And even now, there are nine chapters, s- you know, f- 54 actionable experiments that people can- people can apply in their life. But, you know, the whole thing that I'm trying to get across in this book is that the- the goal is not to apply all 54 at once. The goal is to apply them one at a time and see- see what vibes, see what problem you're having in your life right now. I mean, you know, there's no such thing as a problem, but like what situation you're trying to deal with, what is a strategy that might help? Try it out for yourself. Does it work? Does it not? Cool. Either way, it's an experiment, you've gained data, and you can see how to make it work for you. For some people, you know, they realize the way to be consistent at the gym is to do it first thing in the morning. For some people they do it, re- realize it's in the afternoon. For some people it's an accountability buddy. For some people it's doing CrossFit. For some people it's tracking their workouts using an app. It's different things for different people, but the point is as long as you are finding the things that work for you and not trying to overload your brain by doing all of them at once, that is kind of this path of continuous and never int- uh, and never-ending improvement.

Chris Williamson 1:02:18 Recharge.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:19 Recharge. Um, there's a fun experiment that I- I like to ask people when they say that they're struggling or like burned out or anything like that, which is, what are the things you find yourself doing when you are drained of energy? And then, separately, what are the things that actually recharge your engy- uh, yeah, your energy? So for example, when I find myself drained of energy, I will default to scrolling (laughs) on Twitter (laughs) or Instagram or whatever. Randomly opening YouTube for no reason, randomly refreshing my YouTube analytics. It's like, "Okay." But what are the things that actually recharge my energy? Do any of those things? Have I ever left a scrolling session from- from TikTok feeling, "Whoa, wow, I feel so refreshed"? Absolutely not. I don't think any- I don't know anyone who's left a scrolling session on TikTok feeling- feeling re- really refreshed. Again, I'm not saying TikTok is