How I Manage My Time Without Burning Out by Ali Abdaal

Arshian

How I Manage My Time Without Burning Out by Ali Abdaal   dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00All right, so over the last 15 years

00:01of being a productivity nerd,

00:03I've learned a huge amount about how to get stuff done,

00:05but there is one mistake that most people, including me,

00:08still make when we're trying to be more productive,

00:10and that is trying to do too many things.

00:12Now, so many of us don't make progress towards our goals

00:14because our energy is just being pulled

00:16in way too many directions,

00:18which causes us to burn out

00:19before we make any real progress,

00:20and then we feel bad because we're always at risk

00:22of falling short of achieving the things

00:23that we actually want in life.

00:24But in this absolutely incredible book,

00:26Slow Productivity, Cal Newport explains

00:29how we can stop making this mistake

00:30and how we can understand the art of accomplishment

00:33without burnout.

00:34Now, if you haven't heard of Cal,

00:35Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science

00:37at Georgetown University and the author of eight books,

00:40including, most famously,

00:41So Good They Can't Ignore You,

00:42Deep Work, and Digital Minimalism.

00:44And his latest book, Slow Productivity,

00:45has three core principles that are super interesting

00:48and that we're gonna discuss in this episode of Book Club,

00:50the ongoing series where, for the last four years,

00:53I've been distilling and discussing highlights

00:55and learnings from some of my favorite books.

00:56And if you're new here, hi, my name is Ali.

00:58I'm a doctor-turned-entrepreneur,

00:59and I'm also the author of this book,

01:01Feel Good Productivity.

01:02And this book is about how to do more of the things

01:04that matter to us in a way that's enjoyable,

01:06meaningful, and sustainable.

01:07So it goes really well with the stuff

01:09that we're gonna be talking about in this video.

01:11Okay, so before we talk about these three core principles,

01:14let's talk about the foundations here.

01:15And Cal basically makes the case

01:17that how we think about productivity is pretty flawed

01:20because, you know, back in the day,

01:22productivity was really about, like,

01:24how many widgets a factory could produce

01:26per day or per month or whatever the thing might be.

01:29It was about, like, how much can you do?

01:31But then when we switched into knowledge work

01:33and suddenly productivity became about

01:35the work we can produce with our minds,

01:36we don't really have a good way to measure that.

01:39And because we don't have a good way to measure that,

01:41we started using activity, i.e. how many hours

01:43you're working at your computer typing away,

01:45as a rough proxy for productivity.

01:47And this led to a lot of bad things.

01:49Cal calls this pseudo-productivity.

01:52This is why, you know, people feel burned out

01:54because they feel as if they have to be on the computers

01:56for eight hours a day.

01:57Or, like, the dude who's working 12 hours a day

01:59in the office is somehow more productive

02:00than the person who's doing six hours,

02:02even though, really, the person doing 12 hours

02:04might be wasting their time doing a load of crap.

02:06But they look as if they're being more productive

02:08rather than actually necessarily being productive.

02:10And Cal basically argues that this is one

02:11of the root causes of the burnout that we're seeing,

02:14the increased, like, people not enjoying their jobs,

02:16the feeling that you have to be on all the time,

02:18have to work weekends and evenings, the Zoom fatigue.

02:21All of this stuff broadly stems from this idea

02:24that activity is the core metric of productivity.

02:27And what he basically argues for in the book

02:28is a slow revolution,

02:30and that's why the title is Slow Productivity.

02:32So similar to how there's fast food and slow food,

02:35fast food is like McDonald's,

02:36and slow food is where it's organic and nice

02:38and more sustainable and stuff.

02:40There's fast fashion, which is like H&M and Zara.

02:42And then there's slow fashion,

02:43which is higher quality stuff.

02:45It's probably a bit more expensive, to be honest.

02:46It's probably more sustainable.

02:47Similarly, he argues that we wanna have

02:49this slow revolution when it comes to productivity.

02:51And what he does in the book, which is really interesting,

02:53is that he looks at famously productive knowledge workers

02:57from back in the day.

02:58So people like Galileo and Isaac Newton and Jane Austen,

03:01these people that we wouldn't traditionally think of

03:03as knowledge workers in the modern era,

03:04but they were the knowledge workers from back in the day.

03:07And they had so much autonomy

03:09over how they would spend their time.

03:10So what Cal is basically trying to do here

03:12is he's trying to figure out like,

03:13okay, if you have all the freedom in the world

03:15and you wanna create like masterpieces

03:18that span centuries that we're still reading today,

03:21what were the sorts of rituals and habits

03:23and processes that these famous people

03:25from like hundreds of years ago,

03:26how did they produce all these amazing works?

03:29And based on doing an enormous study of these

03:30and telling some really cool stories in the book,

03:31which you should definitely read,

03:33he teases out three core principles.

03:35And that is what we're gonna be talking about

03:36in this video next.

03:37Oh, quick thing, if you're watching this

03:38before the 30th of June, 2024,

03:40you might like to check out a completely free

03:43quarterly alignment webinar that I'm hosting

03:45completely freely for everyone in my audience.

03:47It is happening three to 5 p.m. UK time

03:50on Sunday, the 30th of June, 2024.

03:53The idea is we're gonna spend two hours together.

03:55I'm gonna be facilitating here on a Zoom call

03:57with like hopefully hundreds,

03:58if not maybe thousands of people

03:59from all around the world.

04:00We're gonna be spending some time

04:01reflecting on the last three months

04:03and setting goals, i.e. quests,

04:04for the next three months.

04:05It is completely free.

04:06Anyone from anywhere in the world

04:07with an internet connection,

04:08you are very welcome to join.

04:09There is a link down below if you wanna check it out.

04:11All right, let's start with principle number one.

04:13And to illustrate this,

04:14Cal tells the story of Jane Austen,

04:16who is one of the most famous writers in history

04:18and wrote a bunch of apparently literary masterpieces

04:20in the 1800s.

04:21Now, one version of how Jane Austen wrote her stuff

04:24was that she was super busy.

04:25She was like a socialite.

04:26And in between sort of seeing visitors

04:28and doing loads of stuff,

04:29she would take out these little pieces of paper

04:31and she would like scribble notes on them.

04:33And then that's how she wrote her books.

04:35And that's kind of one popular explanation

04:37for Jane Austen, which seems kind of nice.

04:39It's like, whoa, you can make time for writing

04:41even amidst a busy life.

04:43But then if you look at the story in a bit more detail,

04:46it turns out most of that was just myth

04:48and was somewhat fabricated by Jane Austen's nephew

04:50or something who wrote this decades after she died.

04:53And primary sources who were actually around at the time

04:56basically say that the four or five year period

04:59in which Jane Austen was able to produce her bangers

05:02was when her family retired to a country house

05:04in the middle of nowhere,

05:05reduced all of their social obligations to basically zero.

05:09And she had expansive amounts of free time

05:11to just focus on her work.

05:13So on the one hand, we have this very busy Jane Austen

05:18who's like doing all these things

05:19and like juggling all these different things

05:20and is able to on the side

05:21somehow produce these absolute masterpieces.

05:24But that's a bit of a myth.

05:25Really, it's when she had large expanses of free time

05:28that she was able to do her best work.

05:29And so Cal writes,

05:30this lesson that doing less can enable better results

05:33defies our contemporary bias towards activity

05:36based on the belief that doing more keeps our options open

05:38and generates more opportunities for reward.

05:40But recall that busy Jane Austen

05:42was neither happy nor producing memorable work.

05:45While unburdened Jane Austen,

05:48writing contently at quiet Chawton Cottage

05:50transformed English literature.

05:52Indeed, simplifying is so important

05:53to our emerging philosophy that I'll enshrine it here

05:56as the official first principle of slow productivity.

05:59And so principle number one is to do fewer things.

06:02Strive to reduce your obligations

06:04to the point where you can easily imagine

06:06accomplishing them with time to spare.

06:08Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace

06:10and advance the small number of projects that matter most.

06:13I think it's worth reading the follow-up paragraph as well.

06:15So the request made here, of course,

06:16is easier explained than actually implemented.

06:18Easier said than done.

06:20In the context of your professional life,

06:21busyness likely seems unavoidable.

06:24Clients demand attention and managers drown you in requests.

06:27Even if you're a solopreneur

06:28and full controller of your days,

06:29the need for income might undermine your intention

06:32to reduce your workload.

06:33Jane Austen's long writing sessions

06:34at her desk in Chawton Cottage

06:36can seem a fantastic mirage for the knowledge worker

06:38facing an endlessly full inbox.

06:40Crucially, he says, and this is sort of like

06:41the philosophy of the whole book,

06:43my goal in this chapter is to persuade you

06:44not to give up on this aspirational vision

06:47of engineered simplicity.

06:48It is possible in most modern work settings

06:51if you're willing to be creative

06:53and perhaps at times even radical

06:54in how you think about selecting and organising your work.

06:57In the pages ahead, I'll detail my case

06:59for why a commitment to simplicity

07:01can be just as beneficial and achievable

07:03in modern knowledge work

07:04as it was for Austen's Victorian-era fiction writing

07:07and then detail some concrete tactics

07:08for implementing this first principle of slow productivity.

07:11Okay, so for me, the most important kind of mental shift

07:14in this section was the idea of overhead tax.

07:16Like let's say at work,

07:17you've got three different projects you're working on,

07:18project one, project two, and project number three.

07:21The fun stuff and the interesting stuff

07:22and the stuff that creates value is sort of the deep work,

07:25the focus time you spend actually working on the projects.

07:27But the stuff that creates no value

07:29but has to be done anyway is the overhead tax.

07:31And the overhead tax is the extra time

07:33that you spend communicating about the project,

07:36sending emails about it, arranging meetings about it,

07:38updating your team on how the project is going,

07:40figuring out who are the stakeholders

07:41to get input on the project.

07:43And you have to do that

07:44for every new project that you take on.

07:46That means if you're doing three projects at once,

07:47you're gonna get three lots of overhead tax,

07:49which means you're probably not gonna have much time

07:51to focus on the project.

07:52Whereas if you're doing fewer things at once,

07:54i.e. following the first principle of slow productivity,

07:56you are focusing on, I'm just doing one project at a time

08:00and I'm gonna forget about the other stuff for now.

08:03And then ideally, once you're done with that project,

08:05you move on to project number two

08:06and its associated overhead tax.

08:08And then ideally, once you're done with project number two,

08:11you move on to project number three

08:12and its associated overhead tax.

08:14And then you might be thinking,

08:15okay, that's easier said than done.

08:16And so to that, I would say firstly, read the book

08:18because he's got like eight different tangible,

08:20practical things that you can actually apply

08:22to your corporate job or whatever your situation is

08:24to actually apply this in real life.

08:26The one that I find most interesting

08:28is essentially the idea of something similar

08:31to what I've talked about in the past,

08:32the energy investment portfolio.

08:33What you wanna do is essentially

08:34you wanna make it more visible what you're working on.

08:37So you have, for example, a backlog.

08:42And then you have active projects.

08:44And you make like a Google Doc

08:45or a Notion page or whatever with this.

08:46And so active project might be, I don't know,

08:48book first draft, PowerPoint about thing X

08:53and I don't know, committee about thing Y.

08:57And then you've got a backlog,

08:58which is that thing, that thing, that thing,

09:00that thing, that thing, that thing, and that thing.

09:02And you make this list visible to your manager,

09:04your boss, and all of your coworkers to be like,

09:06hey, you know, I like to manage my time effectively.

09:08I keep, I'm very meticulous about what I take on

09:10and what I don't.

09:11This is all the backlog of things

09:13that I need to work on at some point.

09:14And these are the things I'm actively working on.

09:16Now, when you make this visible,

09:18if a new request comes in from your manager,

09:21then you say to them, okay, you know,

09:23I'll have a look at my list.

09:24You know, these are the active projects I'm working on.

09:26I'll estimate that these will take, I don't know,

09:28another four weeks to complete.

09:29And then this is the backlog I've got.

09:31And so, you know, this new project of yours

09:34that you've asked me to do over here,

09:36you know, I estimate that I'll probably be able

09:38to get around to it in about three months time.

09:40And then the boss is either gonna say,

09:41we're like, yeah, three months is fine.

09:42Cool, just let me know.

09:43And then they feel profound sense of relief

09:46because the boss basically just wants

09:48to get rid of their own stress.

09:49They wanna offload this project to someone.

09:51And you know, I'm the boss of my team,

09:52so I can relate to this.

09:54I just wanna know that someone will get around

09:56to it at some point.

09:57Or if it's something particularly urgent,

09:58the boss might say, no, no, no,

09:59this really needs to be done in the next two weeks.

10:01To which you then say, okay, sure,

10:03I can get this done in the next two weeks,

10:05but which of my projects would you rather I deprioritise

10:08to make this happen in the next two weeks?

10:09Then the boss really has to think and they say,

10:12either actually, you know what, nevermind,

10:13just sort of get around to it whenever you want.

10:15Or they'll say, actually, you know what,

10:16committee-wide, that's actually not completely necessary.

10:18We actually don't need you for that.

10:19So we can just delete that project.

10:20And now you're operating on this principle

10:23of being able to do fewer things.

10:24A lot of workers, a lot of knowledge workers

10:27sort of have the idea that my boss is looking

10:31for any reason to fire me.

10:33And so like, I couldn't possibly say no to this thing

10:36because my boss is like, you know, if I say no,

10:38then they might fire me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

10:41But really, now that I've run a company

10:43and I have like 22 people working for me,

10:45it's actually really hard to find

10:47and hold on to people who are good.

10:49And so if you are good, if you're good at your job,

10:52you actually have way more power than you think.

10:54The boss is not looking for a reason to fire you.

10:56They're gonna do whatever they can to keep you around

10:58because it's such an absolute nightmare

10:59trying to find new people.

11:00And the only thing is that like,

11:02there's still a thing in the back of the boss's mind

11:04of like, what are they actually doing?

11:06Like I've given them that project,

11:07but it hasn't been done yet and I haven't heard an update

11:08and like, what's going on?

11:10The uncertainty for a boss is the most painful thing.

11:13So if you can make your list of projects visible

11:16and say to them, hey, this is what I'm doing,

11:18this is what I'm working on,

11:19it gives the boss a profound sense of relief.

11:21And it means you can genuinely apply

11:22this first principle of slow productivity,

11:24which is to do fewer things at a time.

11:26You maintain an active project list,

11:28you maintain a backlog,

11:29and you make this visible to your entire team.

11:31Now with all the spare time

11:32that you're definitely gonna unlock

11:33from doing these fewer things,

11:34you might like to spend it learning.

11:36And a great way to do that is by using Brilliant,

11:37who are the sponsor of today's video.

11:39Brilliant is an amazing interactive platform

11:41where you can learn maths, programming, and AI.

11:43And they've got thousands of lessons

11:44and their focus is on learning by doing

11:46rather than just consuming.

11:47I've been using Brilliant for the last five years

11:49and they've been supporting the channel

11:50during that time as well.

11:51They've got a really nice first principles approach

11:53to learning, which helps you build understanding

11:55from the ground up.

11:56And it's all crafted by an award-winning team of teachers,

11:58researchers, and professionals from funky places

12:01like MIT, Caltech, Microsoft, Google,

12:03and way more cool places.

12:04And really Brilliant helps you build

12:05your critical thinking skills through problem solving

12:07rather than just memorizing things.

12:08So while you're building real knowledge on specific topics,

12:11you're also becoming a better thinker.

12:12I personally think learning every day

12:14is one of the most important things you can do,

12:15especially if you do care about productivity.

12:17And the new courses on programming

12:18are also particularly good,

12:19which will help you get familiar with Python

12:21and start building programs on day one

12:23with their built-in drag and drop editor.

12:25If any of that sounds good

12:26and you'd like to try out everything Brilliant

12:27has to offer completely for free,

12:29then head over to brilliant.org forward slash Ali Abdaal

12:31or click the link in the video description.

12:33And that will give you a completely free 30-day trial

12:35and you also get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

12:38So thank you so much Brilliant for sponsoring this video.

12:40All right, now we come on to principle number two.

12:42And there's a bunch of stories in here,

12:44but I think there's an interesting one about Copernicus.

12:46So Copernicus's revolutionary ideas

12:48about planetary motion, for example,

12:50were sparked by a new commentary on Ptolemy

12:52published in 1496,

12:55which the young astronomer read when he was 23 years old.

12:57It wasn't until 1510, however,

12:59that Copernicus got round to writing down his theories

13:02in a working draft that he passed around to friends.

13:04So 14 years later.

13:07It then took another three decades

13:09before he finally published his masterwork

13:11on the revolutions of the celestial spheres

13:13for a broader audience.

13:14The emergence of physics was similarly languid.

13:16Galileo famously used his pulse

13:18to time swinging chandeliers in the Cathedral of Pisa

13:21in 1584, but he didn't get round

13:23to conducting his follow-up experiments,

13:25which led to the identification

13:26of the laws of pendulum motion until 1602.

13:29So again, 15 years later.

13:30Isaac Newton began thinking seriously about gravity

13:32in the summer of 1655,

13:34after he fled the plague in Cambridge.

13:36It took him until 1670 before he felt

13:38he really had a handle on the inverse square law.

13:40So 15 years, and another 15 years or so

13:43before he finally published his paradigm shifting theories.

13:45Cal writes, the second principle of slow productivity

13:47argues that these famous scientists were onto something.

13:50Our exhausting tendency to grind without relief,

13:53hour after hour, day after day, month after month,

13:55is more arbitrary than we recognise.

13:58It's true that many of us have bosses

13:59or clients making demands,

14:01but they don't always dictate the details

14:02of our daily schedule.

14:04It's often our own anxieties

14:07that play the role of the fiercest taskmaster.

14:09I love that.

14:10It's our own anxieties that play the role

14:12of the fiercest taskmaster.

14:13We suffer from overly ambitious timelines

14:16and poorly managed workloads

14:18due to a fundamental uneasiness

14:20with ever stepping back from the numbing exhaustion

14:22of jittery busyness.

14:24In the 16th century, Galileo's professional life

14:26was more leisurely and less intense

14:28than that of the average 21st century knowledge worker.

14:30Yet he still managed to change the course

14:32of human intellectual history.

14:34And that's where we get to principle number two,

14:36which is to work at a natural pace.

14:38Don't rush your most important work.

14:41Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline

14:44with variations in intensity

14:46in settings conducive to brilliance.

14:48Now Cal goes on to argue that essentially

14:50this modern obsession we have

14:52with like working eight hours a day,

14:5340 hours a week and stuff

14:54is really a relic of the industrial revolution

14:56and factories and stuff.

14:57Actually for most of human history,

14:59humans have operated on fairly seasonal

15:01and variable intensity kind of modes of operation.

15:05All these famous scientists,

15:06people back in the day who had lots of autonomy

15:07over their schedule.

15:08The modern construct of the eight hour work day,

15:11the 40 hour work week is kind of arbitrary

15:13and is not really conducive for our most important work.

15:16And again, there's like a dozen different practical tactics

15:18that are in the book.

15:19So you should definitely read the book.

15:19But one thing that I really took away from this

15:21was the idea of embracing seasonality.

15:24Meaning that like just being a little bit slower

15:28during the summer months

15:29or not taking on too many projects

15:30during the Christmas break, for example.

15:32So that's seasonality on kind of a long-term scale,

15:34but also embracing seasonality on a more micro scale.

15:37So for example, what I've done

15:38is I now have Mondays and Fridays

15:40that are completely devoid of any kind of work obligations,

15:44any meetings, anything like that.

15:45So I have one day a week,

15:46which is sort of my intense filming day.

15:47I have one day a week, which is for meetings.

15:49And I have all the rest of the time

15:50to work at a more natural pace

15:52where I can let ideas simmer

15:54and sort of tinker away in the background

15:56and be working on my next book

15:58and thinking about the ideas for that.

16:00And before reading Slow Productivity

16:02and really appreciating these principles,

16:03I kind of felt like,

16:04ah, you know, I really should be,

16:06I really should be working on this new book.

16:07I want to sort of carve some time out

16:08to really focus on it.

16:09But now I'm like, actually, yeah, it's probably fine.

16:12Like I don't need to work on this book right now.

16:14I can allow it to sort of percolate in the background

16:18because I want the next book to also be really good.

16:20Kind of like the first one.

16:21By the way, if you haven't checked out my first book,

16:22Feel Good Productivity, you should check it out.

16:25I want the book to be really good.

16:26And so really good things take time

16:28and working at a natural pace is better for us.

16:30It's more sustainable, it's more humane,

16:32and it often leads to better work

16:34than trying to hurriedly sprint towards something

16:36in this age of overwhelm and this era of busyness.

16:39Oh, quick heads up, by the way.

16:40If you would like to read summaries

16:42of Cal Newport's other books,

16:43then you should definitely check out Shortform.

16:45There will be an affiliate link

16:46with a 20% discount in the video description.

16:48They're not sponsoring this, but that is an affiliate link.

16:50I've been using them for years.

16:51It's an amazing service that summarizes

16:53over a thousand nonfiction books.

16:54And you might like to also check out

16:56their brand new podcast guides feature,

16:57which is pretty sick.

16:58So if you like books, you like learning,

16:59and you want to do it in a time efficient way,

17:01you should definitely check out Shortform.

17:03And then finally, we come to principle number three,

17:04which is to obsess over quality.

17:06Obsess over the quality of what you produce,

17:08even if this means missing opportunities in the short term.

17:12Leverage the value of these results

17:13to gain more and more freedom

17:14in your efforts over the long term.

17:16Now, I think it's worth emphasizing here.

17:17He's got an interlude about perfectionism

17:19because obsessing over quality can be like,

17:22if you take that too much to heart,

17:25you might end up thinking that everything has to be perfect

17:27and you have to spend way too long working on the thing.

17:30This is a delicate balancing act.

17:32You know, he tells a couple of stories

17:33in this interlude about perfectionism,

17:35but I really like this.

17:36This is a good general strategy

17:38for balancing obsession and perfectionism.

17:40Give yourself enough time to produce something great,

17:43but not unlimited time.

17:45Focus on creating something good enough

17:46to catch the attention of those whose taste you care about,

17:49but relieve yourself of the need to forge a masterpiece.

17:52Progress is what matters, not perfection.

17:55Now, I found that this bit of the book

17:56reminded me of some advice that I heard

17:57from a friend and mentor, Brendan Burchard,

18:00which is that often the difference between good and great

18:04is an extra two to four weeks of effort.

18:06And we think about this a lot

18:07when it comes to stuff within the business,

18:09where, you know, if we release a course or something,

18:13it's like, it's pretty good, it's good enough,

18:16but if we were to give it an extra month,

18:19it would, that would be the final layer of polish.

18:22We wouldn't wanna give it an extra year

18:24because on the, you know,

18:25in the grand scheme of creating online courses,

18:28which are somewhat meaningless

18:29in the grand scheme of things,

18:29like an extra year is probably a bit too long

18:31and trying to do it in an extra two or three days

18:33would result in a lot of this busyness and stress and stuff,

18:35which also isn't conducive to good work.

18:37So it's really this delicate balancing act,

18:40which is gonna vary depending on what industry you're in

18:42and what work you do around how do you balance quality

18:45with the idea of done is better than perfect.

18:48Some people I know who are like really,

18:50really perfectionistic and could do with

18:52obsessing less about quality.

18:54Some people I know are not very perfectionistic at all

18:56and could do with a little bit more obsessing over quality.

18:58The key thing that I personally took away from the book

19:00and reading the stuff is recognizing that it takes,

19:04like good things take time.

19:06And that's not necessarily even time in terms of

19:11like it takes 10 years to produce something good,

19:13but it's just time to focus on the thing.

19:16And that means saying no

19:18to other shorter term obligations.

19:21One thing that I'm,

19:22this is very much a first world problem right now,

19:24but it's like the thing I wanna do

19:25is just keep on making good YouTube videos

19:28and keep on writing books.

19:29But now that I've released my book,

19:31I'm now getting all of these like speaking gigs

19:34where companies are paying me

19:35literally tens of thousands of dollars

19:37to fly business or first class

19:39to give a talk at their conference,

19:41which is often in the US.

19:43Now, thinking about like,

19:46oh, I get to fly to America and go to New York

19:49and give a talk for insert big company here.

19:51And they're gonna pay me 30 grand to do that.

19:53And then I get to fly back home.

19:55And that would take me like four days of my time.

19:57Bloody hell, that's more money

19:58than I would have earned in a year working as a doctor.

20:00It's like those sorts of opportunities are coming up,

20:03but those sorts of opportunities take me away

20:05from the work that I really care about doing,

20:08which is writing good books

20:09and making good YouTube videos.

20:12And everyone has this balance to some degree of like,

20:15do you wanna take the short term commercial opportunities

20:18or do you wanna focus on your craft?

20:20Now, obviously, if you have bills to pay and stuff,

20:21your circumstances might mean

20:23that you have to lean more one way than another.

20:25But I found myself saying yes

20:26to a lot of these speaking gigs

20:27because I was lured by the short term sirens call of,

20:30oh, there's all this money up for grabs.

20:33And then I found that like,

20:34ah, you know, I'm not actually giving myself

20:37any time to write, which is the thing I wanna do

20:39because writing creates YouTube videos and creates books.

20:42But to give myself the time to write

20:43means saying no to extra money

20:45because I don't get paid to write more words

20:49until a book comes up way further down the line

20:50and books don't make that much money anyway.

20:53So I found that reading this chapter

20:54was super interesting and quite inspiring

20:56in a way of just helping me appreciate that,

20:58okay, this is actually a difficult balancing act.

21:00All of us, whatever work we're doing,

21:02have to balance this idea of quality

21:04with actually getting the thing done,

21:06saying no to things that make money in the short term

21:09versus giving ourselves the time and space

21:11to potentially focus on something

21:13that could have better long-term results.

21:16It's a hard one, I don't really know the answer.

21:17But if you've gotten to this point in the video

21:18and you haven't yet checked out the book,

21:19you definitely should

21:20because I think you'll really like it.

21:22It's absolutely sick.

21:22I've highlighted the crap out of it on my Kindle

21:24and within Productivity Lab,

21:25which is my community for entrepreneurs,

21:27creators and professionals to double their productivity,

21:29we're also starting a book club.

21:31Every month we read a new book together.

21:32And so this is gonna be one of the first ones that we do

21:34because I just think it's super, super valuable

21:36and I think everyone should read it.

21:37And if you like this video

21:38and you're interested in a video about a book

21:40that complements this,

21:41but with a slightly different approach,

21:42you might like to check out that video over here,

21:43which is my video about the 12-week year,

21:46which is also a pretty solid productivity book

21:48that sort of goes against some of the principles

21:50of slow productivity,

21:51but also works nicely complementarily.

21:53So you should check that one out as well.

21:54Thank you so much for watching

21:55and I'll see you in the next video.

21:56Bye-bye.

Category

Transcript

Recommended