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00:00All right, so myth number one is when you tell yourself that I should have been more productive

00:03and you use that as a reason to flagellate and beat yourself up at the end of the day.

00:07Yes, maybe you could have been more productive, but telling yourself that you should have been

00:10and you're going to beat yourself up, it doesn't change how much work you managed to get that day.

00:13It doesn't change how productive you are. It just makes you feel terrible about yourself.

00:16And so these days, whenever I'm tempted to tell myself I should have been more productive today,

00:20I just remind myself, you know what, I can just simply choose to be satisfied with how

00:24much work I've done today. And it's totally fine. I can always begin again tomorrow.

00:28All right, myth number two is that consistency is more important than intensity.

00:32There is a whole movement these days that says it's all about consistency. It's not about putting

00:36in loads of effort right now. It's about putting in small amounts of effort over a very long period

00:40of time. And then you'll get those results. And I definitely agree with that, but there are some

00:44important caveats here. And I think almost we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater and we've

00:49kind of given intensity a bad name. There's nothing wrong with being intense about something

00:52like not everything in life is a marathon where you have to pace yourself. Some things can be

00:56sprints. If you're, for example, trying to get a project out the door and you just want to finish

01:00the thing, then it's totally fine to have like a brief period of intensity. If you're, for example,

01:03thinking of starting a YouTube channel and you're like, have never done any of this stuff before,

01:07then it's totally okay to just decide, you know what, today I'm just going to spend all day just

01:10trying to get this YouTube channel started and get my first video out. That's not sustainable

01:14forever. You can't spend like a whole 18 hours or 12 hours in a day focusing on your YouTube

01:18channel every single day, but it doesn't need to be sustainable forever. It just needs to help

01:22you work towards your goals. So yes, consistency is obviously super important for most things in

01:26life, but I think it's worth remembering that actually small periods of intensity punctuated

01:31by long periods of rest is also a very reasonable way to go about things depending on what you're

01:34working on. All right, tip number three, this is an absolute classic. The myth is that motivation

01:38leads to action. The myth is that, oh, if I want to do something, I need to feel motivated to do it.

01:43But actually the truth is, as all of you guys know, if you've been consuming the productivity

01:47genre for as long as I have, motivation is a myth. Like you don't need motivation to take action.

01:52You can simply choose to do something even if you're not motivated to do it. And so rather than

01:56motivation leading to action, it's more that action leads to motivation. The more you do something and

02:01the more small successes you can get under your belt, the more motivated you're going to be to

02:06continue doing the thing. All righty, myth number four is that hustle culture is bad. Again, don't

02:10cancel me for this, but like we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. By the way, hustle

02:14culture is the worst thing ever. Yes, I agree. A culture that encourages people to like overwork

02:18themselves to the point of burnout is bad. But there's no getting around the fact that if you

02:23actually want to, for example, start a business or make passive income or start side hustles or like

02:28succeed in a competitive field, you do have to work for it. Like there's no getting around that

02:33fact. Like sometimes just working nine to five, Monday to Friday, showing up, clocking in, clocking

02:37out is not actually the way that you win, depending on what winning means to you. I get emails from

02:42people being like, hey, I love the idea of having a YouTube channel that makes me $10,000 a month.

02:47Do you think I can do that with four hours a week? And I'm like, no, absolutely not. If you

02:51have the audacity to try and make $120,000 a year from a YouTube channel where you have fun, freedom,

02:56flexibility, you can do what you want, you can make what videos you want. How could you possibly

02:59think that that doesn't take any work? And I think this is kind of the issue with the whole hustle

03:04culture is bad kind of model these days. If you ask any successful entrepreneur, if you ask anyone

03:09who has done something that you maybe aspire to, then they will often say that they hustled really,

03:14really hard. And then once the thing became successful, then they cared more about work

03:18life balance and that kind of thing. So ultimately it all comes down to what is your goal? Like

03:21what's the point of doing the thing? If your goal is to do something extraordinary, whatever that

03:25looks like for you, you probably have to put in extraordinary amounts of work. If your goal is

03:28not, if your goal is like, actually, I just want to have a balanced and chill life. Great, fantastic.

03:32You don't need to hustle at all, but it really just depends on what the goal is. And I almost

03:35don't like the fact that like we've gone so far the other way of like hustle culture is the worst

03:39thing ever that encourages people that like hard work is actually a bad thing. Alrighty. So

03:42continuing the somewhat hot takes in this video, myth number five is that productivity is not

03:47self-care. There's a great book by Grace Beverly called Working Hard, Hardly Working that talks

03:50about this. It's basically about like how we've somehow ended up with these two different camps.

03:54We've got team productivity. That's like, yeah, I want to work. And we've got team self-care. That's

03:58like, no, don't do any work. Go have a bath, go like get some rose petals, go for a walk in nature.

04:03And these are not like diametrically opposed things. They're actually kind of two sides of

04:08the same coin. They often kind of go together. And sometimes productivity is self-care. It's not

04:13necessarily self-care if you've got your taxes due the following day to be like, you know what,

04:18screw hustle culture, screw productivity. I'm just going to, you know, pull myself a warm bath and

04:22I'm going to take a walk in nature and I'm going to have a nice time. It's like, no, you're going

04:25to get fined, potentially end up in prison. Like bad things will happen if you don't do your taxes.

04:28Similarly, I'm not going to hand in my dissertation tomorrow because I deserve self-care. No, screw

04:32that. Sometimes the greatest thing you can do for your own self-care is to actually be productive,

04:37is to get that thing in on time, is to actually spend a few extra hours working in the evening,

04:41because that is the best thing you can do for your mental health, rather than thinking that like,

04:44cool, I must finish work by 5pm. And if I don't like screw all the consequences of that, I'm just

04:49going to focus on self-care. So again, please don't cancel me for this. But what I'm trying to say is

04:53that like, we've possibly gone too far in the direction of separating out productivity and

04:57self-care. And actually, in some cases, productivity is self-care. And in some cases, self-care is

05:01productivity. In some cases, actually taking a break, taking a vacation is exactly what you need

05:06to boost your productivity. And so, you know, these are not like two very different things.

05:10All right, myth number six is that goals should be SMART. Now, this one is interesting. If you look

05:15any, if you look at any video, any blog post, any book about goal setting, you'll come across

05:19the acronym SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound, or something like that.

05:24The issue with SMART goals, like there's nothing particularly wrong with them on the surface,

05:28but they don't tell the whole story. We want to add a few things to that. Firstly, we want to add

05:32proximal, i.e., you know, there's a bunch of evidence that says that goals that are more

05:36like close to us in time are better than goals that are really far out from us in time.

05:41And often, if you think about a goal of like, I really want to build a million dollar business,

05:45and you have never built a business before, like that goal generally is not particularly helpful

05:50or particularly motivating. But instead, setting the goal more proximally of I want to make $100

05:56a month with my business. That's actually way, way, way more like kind of proximal than the goal

06:00of I want to make a million dollars with my business, even though both might be equally

06:03achievable depending on kind of what your time horizon is. But the other thing to keep in mind

06:07with goals is the difference between intrinsic goals and extrinsic goals. And I've been doing

06:10so much research about this, like reading a shit ton of papers and stuff for research on my book.

06:14But essentially, an extrinsic goal is a goal that has a specific kind of like external goalpost

06:19applied to it. So for example, hitting a million subscribers would be an extrinsic goal. Trying to

06:24win a particular competition would be an extrinsic goal, because it's like broadly, these things are

06:29outside of your control. Whereas an intrinsic goal might be something like I want to make

06:32connections with people or I want to grow my own skills. It's more of like an internal drive rather

06:37than an external thing that's sort of outside of your control. And now your goals are not subject

06:40to the whims of the market or the whims of other people. They're purely within your own control.

06:44And so you're more likely to feel a sense of autonomy and power and competence as you work

06:48towards those particular goals. All right, myth number seven is that you can do everything. If

06:51you are just a little bit more productive, if you had a little bit more time, if you were just a

06:54little bit more disciplined, you would actually be able to do everything on your to do list.

06:58And this is this is a bit of a myth. All of us today, all of our to do lists are never ending.

07:02There is an endless amount of work we could be doing. There's an endless amount of household

07:06improvements we could be doing, an endless amount of quality time we could be spending with our

07:09family and friends, an infinite amount of tasks we could be doing for our work or our business,

07:13an endless amount of hobbies we could be working on. We want to do all these things. The list is

07:17never ending. And this is something that Oliver Berkman talks about in the book 4000 Weeks,

07:21which is actually pretty good. And it's basically about embracing our finitude and embracing the

07:24fact that we're going to die and we're not going to have time to do all the things. And so we can

07:28just strategically decide what are the things we're going to be mediocre at. I have strategically

07:32decided I'm never going to be good at replying to messages on WhatsApp or emails and stuff.

07:36I'm like, you know, in a dream world, if I had magically five extra hours in the day,

07:39I would love to reply to everyone who messages me. Physically, I can't do that. I'm going to

07:43not like beat myself up for doing that. I cannot do everything. I think when you embrace that

07:47attitude of finitude, the attitude of I actually can't do everything, it means you're like, cool,

07:52I can probably only do like three things today. What are those three things I want to do? And

07:55then you can just sort of safely ignore the rest and hope that it doesn't come back to bite you

07:59in a bad way. All right, moving on. Myth number eight is that you don't have time. I hate it when

08:03I hear people say I don't have time to do X. I used to tell myself this back in the day back

08:07when I think when I was in school. But as I started reading productivity books and getting more into

08:11this thing and try to genuinely be more productive, I realised that whenever I tell myself I don't have

08:16time, A, I'm lying to myself and B, I am taking autonomy, control and power away from myself

08:22because it's never that you don't have time. It's always that the thing is not enough of a

08:26priority. And this is just a subtly different way of phrasing the same thing. Like right now,

08:30I don't have time to take singing lessons regularly. But like, realistically, I do. Like,

08:36you know, if I really wanted to, if you offered me a million pounds every time I took a singing

08:39lesson, I would make the time to take singing lessons. The problem is, it's like a thing I

08:43want to do. My calendar is a bit chock-a-block with other things. I'm working on my book. I'm

08:47trying to do some videos and podcasts and all this other kind of stuff, trying to have a balanced

08:50Singing lessons are not really a priority right now. So it's not that I don't have time for them.

08:53It's that I'm choosing not to make them a priority. And almost whatever circumstance you find yourself

08:58in, you can always choose to reframe things that way. Because saying it's not a priority for me

09:03right now, it's just a more high autonomy way of saying the same thing of I don't have time.

09:08But as all the research shows, when you feel autonomy, you feel more self determined,

09:11you feel like your life is more under your control. And even if it's not, even if you

09:15genuinely don't have time, by just telling yourself that no, I'm choosing not to make the

09:20time, you get more of that feeling of control. And therefore you're far more likely to be productive

09:24at the thing. But also you're going to feel better because you know, we as humans have evolved to

09:27have this innate need for autonomy. And so if you can satisfy that need by just changing the story

09:32you tell yourself about whether you have time, or whether you're choosing not to make it a priority,

09:36that is a thing that then bleeds into every other aspect of life and just makes life feel a lot

09:40better. Alright, myth number nine is that productivity is about doing more. And yes,

09:44it's about doing more to an extent, but actually productivity is more about doing more of the

09:48right things. And the way I think of it is the productivity equation, which is that productivity

09:52equals meaningful output divided by time multiplied by fun, the output needs to be meaningful,

09:58there is no point driving super fast down the road, if you are driving in the wrong direction,

10:01that's like actively counterproductive. And so really productivity involves like a balance of

10:06all of these different terms. It's not just about doing more things faster. It's about doing more

10:10meaningful things. And the reason I've got fun in there as a concept is because I kind of think

10:14that if you can approach productivity in a way like where you can try and enjoy the things that

10:19you're doing, and you can try and enjoy the journey, that is just a massive multiplier on

10:23your productivity. Because the real problem with trying to get things done is when you freaking

10:27hate doing the thing. And actually, if you're interested in learning more about this stuff,

10:29you might like to check out my online class all about productivity, which is available completely

10:34for free on Skillshare, who are very kindly sponsoring this video. If you haven't heard by

10:37now, Skillshare is the world's leading online platform for educational classes. They've got

10:41classes on all sorts of things from productivity, video editing, YouTubing, cooking, interior design,

10:46business, so many things. But the reason why you should sign up for Skillshare if you haven't

10:50already is because I've got around 12 different classes on Skillshare that are available completely

10:54free of charge when you sign up to Skillshare or when you take out a free trial. So you can check

10:58out any of my three classes around productivity. If you're interested in starting a YouTube channel,

11:02you can check out my YouTube for beginners class. I've had comments from people being like, I can't

11:05believe this is free, I would have paid $500 for this. And it's all completely available for free

11:09on Skillshare. So if you are one of the first 1000 people to hit the link in the video description,

11:13and you can sign up for a free one month trial of Skillshare. And in that time, you can watch any of

11:17my classes to your heart's content. And you can explore all of the other things that Skillshare

11:20has an offer. So thank you so much Skillshare for sponsoring this video. All right, myth number 10

11:24is that you need large amounts of time to do good work. This is a myth that I find myself buying

11:28into quite a lot. I'm like, ah, I only have 23 minutes until my next meeting or my next appointment

11:33or my personal training session at the gym. I can't I can't really get anything done in 23 minutes.

11:38You know what, I'll just like screw around and scroll Twitter and keep up to date with what's

11:41going on with like FTX and all of this fun stuff. But actually, that's a bit of a myth,

11:44because if I wanted to, I actually could be more intentional with how I'm using those 23 minutes.

11:49And there's a fantastic book by Matthew Dix called someday is today. That is like super,

11:53super inspiring and amazing if you want to boost your productivity, but also if you just want to

11:56improve your life in general. And one of the things he says, like Matthew is has written about

12:01like 10 books, 10 plus books in his life, while also being a full time teacher and also doing a

12:06bunch of internet stuff and also having kids. And he says that the way he manages to write all these

12:0910 books is that he does his writing in between random moments in the day. Like if someone is

12:14seven minutes late to a meeting, he'll just get his laptop out or get his notebook out and just

12:18write seven sentences. Because you can write seven sentences in seven minutes. And yeah, it's not a

12:22whole chapter, but it's seven sentences. And those seven sentences get you closer to the goal of

12:26actually writing the chapter. And I just love that I find it so inspiring. I think it's so true that

12:31so easy for us to convince ourselves and believe the myth that we need these large uninterrupted

12:35blocks of time to do deep work. Yes, it's really nice to have. But if you have a busy life, if you

12:39have other things going on, if you have kids, like I haven't got kids, I have no idea what it's like

12:43having kids. But like people I know who have kids, I'm just like, how do you do it? But you know what

12:47Matthew says in the book, which I probably agree with is that you find the time you make the time

12:51in these like little pockets of time. And if you kind of waited for the opportunity where you

12:56magically had, I don't know, three free hours and a coffee in a nice environment to do your work,

13:02you'd never ever, ever get anything done. And so really, I think this is a myth. And we should

13:07kind of take advantage of being a little bit more intentional in those little moments in the day

13:10where otherwise we'd find ourselves doing totally pointless things like scrolling Twitter. Obviously,

13:14nothing wrong with scrolling Twitter. But as long as you're doing it intentionally,

13:18I find myself scrolling Twitter a lot. And I always think to myself, do I really want to be

13:21doing this? And sometimes the answer is yes. Or I'm like, I really want to scroll Twitter right

13:25now, which is totally fine. But at other times, the answer is, I actually don't. The only reason

13:29I opened up Twitter is because I just kind of muscle memory. And then I choose to close it down

13:34and do something a little bit more intentional with my time. On a related note, myth number 11

13:37is that your environment has to be perfect. I love a good desk setup like anyone else. I have all

13:42these accessories on my desk. I have a little candle. It's nice having a candle. I have a little

13:45fake plant. It's nice having a fake plant. But crucially, it's a bit of a myth if I'm telling

13:50myself I require these things to be more productive. Yes, they kind of help, but they're

13:55not requirements. They're what the Stoics would call preferred indifference. I'm broadly indifferent

14:00to the presence of a candle or a nice headphones or a nice lamp on my desk, but it would be nice

14:04if I had it. But that doesn't necessarily mean I can't get work done without having these things.

14:07And I've met a lot of people over the years who have sort of added up these fake requirements to

14:11them in their minds. It's like, oh, I can't get any work done until I do my morning routine.

14:16It's like, BS, of course you can. I can't get any work done unless I have like two monitors

14:20in front of me. Like, no, you absolutely can. You're just kind of being a bit precious about it.

14:24And like, there's really no need for that. Like people have been doing lots and lots of very

14:27useful and very productive things since like the dawn of time without having access to all this

14:31fancy tech and aesthetics and like coffee shop and latte art that we convince ourselves that

14:34we actually need. We don't need any of that. We can be productive in the most ascetic environments.

14:39Really, I think kind of the fewer requirements you can have in your own mind for what you need

14:43to be productive, the more likely you are to be able to actually achieve the things that you want

14:46to set out to. All right. Myth number 12 is that the small stuff does not matter. You will hear

14:50some productivity books saying that it's not about how fast you type. It's not about the keyboard

14:53shortcuts. It's not about like these little micro adjustments. It's about the big picture stuff.

14:59And I agree to an extent. Yes, it's about the big picture stuff, but actually the small micro

15:04adjustments that you can do to your productivity do actually help. Like I have found it incredibly

15:09valuable training my typing speed to the point that I can type like 150 words per minute.

15:13That makes it like, that means that everything I do on the computer is twice as fast as someone

15:17who types at 75 words per minute. And so for me to reply to emails very quickly is twice as fast.

15:21For me to write a script for a video is twice as fast as someone else. And in a way it's like,

15:26the way I think of it is that if I can, like when interacting with a computer, for example,

15:30if I can reduce the amount of time between me having a thought and that thought like happening

15:35on the computer, it just reduces the friction for absolutely everything. Whereas my mum, for example,

15:40will take about 10 times as long to do exactly the same thing, if not longer. And so for her,

15:44there is actually genuinely a cap to how much work she can get done in a particular day.

15:48I found this like really, really held true when I used to work as a doctor. As junior doctors,

15:52you have to do a lot of typing. You have to do a lot of admin after when, once you see a patient,

15:55you type up the notes, all this kind of stuff. The other three doctors that I was working with,

15:59who were also kind of the same level as me, their typing speeds were like kind of slow.

16:04And so they would stay behind for like an hour after work to fully type up the notes that they

16:08were doing for the patients. Whereas for me, my typing speed was fast. And so I could see a patient

16:12and like, while the patient was like in the waiting room and waiting for the blood results

16:16to arrive, I would just like type up the notes. It would be super detailed because I can like type

16:20really fast. And then I wouldn't need to stay behind after work while these guys were like

16:23scrolling notes on bits of paper and then having to sort of type them up afterwards.

16:27Training your typing speed is actually not that tricky. They also have a class in Skillshare about

16:31how to type faster if you're interested. But training your typing speed isn't that hard.

16:34And it's a thing that really then bleeds into every area of your life. And it's like genuinely

16:38a useful thing. Yeah, fine. It's not going to move the needle for your productivity. But if you can

16:41go home an extra half an hour early, because you've managed to type things faster than other

16:44people around you, it's just generally nice for your life as well. And finally, myth number 13

16:48is that reading too many books is useless. Now, again, this is sort of like the consistency

16:53intensity stuff. If you are the sort of person that reads absolutely no books at all, then your

16:57life will be immeasurably improved by actually reading. Like there's just, there's just like

17:03mountains and mountains of evidence that people who read is like if you basically ask anyone who's

17:07successful, they will they will credit their success to reading books. So if you don't read

17:11anything at all, then you need to read some amount of books. But there's almost this counterculture

17:15that says there's there is such a thing as reading too many books. You know, sometimes I'll mention

17:20that, oh, yeah, I read about 100 books a year. And people are like, what 100 books a year,

17:24there's no way you could possibly get any value from those books, because you're listening to

17:27them at 3x speed, or because you're just skimming them because like, it's so much better to read

17:31one book a year and just really absorb and apply the insights. It's always a little bit more nuanced

17:36than that. The way I think of it is that when it comes to reading, there are really two modes of

17:39reading, there is reading for exploration, and then there's reading for exploitation or action

17:44or insight or whatever you want to call it. So when I'm reading for exploration, you know,

17:48recently, I've become interested in like world history. And so I'm listening to sapiens, I've

17:52read a book called the bomb by Fred Kaplan, which is all about the history of the nuclear bomb. And

17:55it's like interesting things like that, where realistically, I'm not going to be

18:00trawling through the book about the invention of the nuclear bomb and being like, what insights

18:03can I apply to my life here? I don't know how that's just not how it's going to work. It's more

18:07like, I'm interested in the topic, I found a book that a friend recommended to get a cursory overview

18:12of the topic. And so if I listen to it at three times speed, and get done with it in four hours,

18:16now I just have all this knowledge and background context in my brain about the nuclear bomb.

18:20And maybe I can't recite like, by memory, exactly the names and dates and stuff of the people that

18:25were involved in inventing it. But at least I know enough of the big picture. And so that is reading

18:29for exploration, I'm exploring a new topic. Whereas yes, I agree, if I'm reading for exploitation,

18:34if I'm reading a business book, for example, and I'm trying to actively apply the insights to grow

18:38my business, it makes a lot more sense for me to just read a few of them and apply those insights

18:42rather than read 500 of them and not apply any of them at all. So I think it's not quite as simple as

18:47reading loads of books is bad for you. Like some people say, it's more like, well, it depends,

18:51what are you reading them for? Are you reading for exploration? Or are you reading for exploitation

18:54or insight? So that brings us to the end of this video. If you liked this, you might have to check

18:57out this video over here, which is 12 cheap purchases under $20 that have genuinely improved

19:02my own productivity. If you're interested in being more productive, like you might find some things

19:05in there that you haven't thought about, you can buy very, very cheaply, you can add to your desk,

19:08and it will just level up your productivity. So thank you so much for watching. Have a great day,

19:11and I'll see you in the next video. Bye bye.

12 Productivity Myths Wasting Your Time - Ali Abdaal

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