Productivity Expert: How To Finally Stay Productive: Ali Abdaal | E93

Ali Abdaal, he is a creator, he is a entrepreneur, he came first at Cambridge, and he is a productivity expert.

The way that I define productivity is just kind of using my time well, and working on things that are meaningful to me, and optimizing for happiness. I feel unproductive when I know there is something I want to do and I am not doing the thing because I'm scrolling Instagram. Procrastination is a problem with getting started, and so the key to overcoming procrastination is that little nudge at the start towards actually getting started. There are a few- a few hacks, the- the one that I use all the time is the- the two-minute rule, two minutes is all you need to change your life. The way I try and remind myself of this point of, "I- I am enough," is thinking and- and really trying to internalize that the journey is more important than the destination. We do need a destination, but really, like, am I enjoying myself day-to-day, and am I kind of living the dream, as it were, day-to-day, and not- and not so much worrying about the goal at the end of it?

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Productivity, procrastination, two things that all people aspiring to success, or really aspiring to get anything done, often struggle with. Today, we're gonna try and solve that problem. Today, I'm joined by Ali Abdaal. He is a creator on YouTube, he's got millions and millions of subscribers, he is a entrepreneur, he's a Cambridge graduate who came first at Cambridge, and he is a productivity expert. And honestly, he's read more books than anyone I think I've ever met on the subject, but generally about how to become the best version of yourself. This conversation isn't just about productivity and procrastination, it ends up twisting and turning through a bunch of different topics, like relationships and friendships, and the meaning of life and happiness, but what else would you expect from this podcast? You're gonna enjoy this conversation. Ali is an incredibly intelligent, intellectual, compassionate, self-aware individual, and he's able to talk in a way that simplifies complex ideas for people like me and you. So, without further ado, my name's Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

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I really start here with all my guests, because I think it's so foundation- foundational to everything that they then say thereafter, is getting a bit of context as to who you are, where you came from-

Mm-hmm.

... and the environment in which Ali was created.

Oh, interesting question. Okay, so, um, I was born in Karachi in Pakistan in 1994, so I'm 27 now. And when I was two years old, my mom and dad divorced and my mom moved us to Lesotho in Southern Africa. Uh, it's a country most people haven't heard of, it's surrounded by South Africa, like, landlocked by South Africa, and we were there for about five, six years growing up. Uh, at that point, you know, my mom really valued education, she was working as a doctor and she knew the educational opportunities in Southern Africa, in Lesotho, were not great, and so we made a plan to move to the UK. And so we came to the UK in 2003, she started working here as a doctor, and we moved around a little bit in different areas in the UK. And it was really in- in secondary school, uh, that I did, in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, where I discovered kind of entrepreneurship and the internet and computers and stuff. And basically, all throughout school, I'd be the kid getting, like, decent grades and everything like that, but the thing I, like, I would- I would look forward to going home so that I could do some more coding or tinker on some websites or try and shill my services as a freelance graphic designer or something for five dollars here and there. And I was making kind of, you know, a little bit of money, I- I lied about my age on PayPal, I pretended I was 18 when I was actually, like, 13 (laughs) , and I was getting, like, five, ten dollars from these small businesses, uh, here and there, and thinking, "Oh my God, I'm- I'm making money on the internet, this is incredible." And then as I went through school, uh, me and my friends, we were all quite interested in the entrepreneurship stuff. We were all, we were doing, like, well in school, and I was like, "Oh, it would be cool to go to Oxford or Cambridge, would be cool to do medicine," but really, my passion at the time (laughs) was going home and- and tinkering with websites. And so that was kind of the environment that I grew up in. Then when I went to university, you know, thankfully I got a place for medicine at Cambridge, which was great, awesome experience.