They say to find something that gets you jumping out of bed in the morning excited to start the day.
It’s a long time since I’ve had that, but this morning was different.
After making the decision yesterday to take action and investigate the field of entrepreneurship with a view to starting my own business, I was up early this morning and tuning into Ali Abdaal on YouTube.
When it comes to entrepreneurship, productivity and starting your own business, I really don’t think there is anyone better.
And if there are areas you want to explore more, he often recommends other people channels, podcasts and books to read.
After spending the morning watching his videos, I’m taking a short break to dive into some of his recommended reading, as I’ve been given a wealth of information that I need time to process.
The importance of balance
One thing I really like about Ali is not just his down to earth advice which is clearly coming from a brilliant brain, but the fact that he also talks about the importance of having a balanced life, looking after your health, spending time with your family and working on the relationships that matter.
This feels a lot healthier than the advice to work through the night on a business idea until you get it right.
A customer-first approach
And when it comes to business ideas, he emphases the importance of thinking of your customer first, identifying who they are and how you can serve them.
By understanding their needs and their pain points, you can then think of business ideas that will help ease them. And ideally you want customers with the ability to pay.
Building in thinking time
He talks about the importance of factoring thinking time into each day, and recommends journalling for this.
One of the books he recommends that has various journalling prompts is The Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham.
It’s described as a series of short chapters and subsequent Thinking Time questions are designed to maximise clarity and create better choices…either of which will result in fewer stupid mistakes.
Using time wisely
Ali mentions the importance of not wasting time, which means I’ll need to ditch my evening routine of spending hours on TikTok, but that makes a lot of sense.
Many of us feel we don’t have time to spend hours reading, but one suggestion of his is to listen to audiobooks on the daily commute, when doing chores around the house, or out walking.
Speed reading and speed listening
As a result I’ve downloaded some of the books I suggested in my last post to Audible and plan to consume their content that way.
Ali listens to a lot of content on double speed, which is something I’ve done in the past, which means it takes half the time.
He says if it is a book that he really needs to focus on then he’ll listen at normal speed and take notes, but that isn’t necessary for all books and listening on double or even triple speed saves a lot of time.
Somewhere on his channel I’m certain I watched a video on speed-reading which is also very useful and a way of consuming content more quickly.
There is also a website that gives summaries of books that he recommends called Shortform.
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset
I certainly need to free up time to think about business ideas, read about entrepreneurship, listen to Podcasts (and Ali has his own called Deep Dive), and learn more about launching a business and making it successful.
I’m not going to achieve that by scrolling on social media or binge-watching programmes on Netflix.
I need to immerse myself in the world of entrepreneurship and develop an entrepreneurial mindset, which will include devoting any spare time to the pursuit of starting my own business.
But of course, as Ali points out, it’s all about achieving balance. No one wants to burn out trying to start their own business because that won’t achieve anything.
Validating business ideas
Ali also talks about not spending hours working on a business to then launch, but instead spending time validating the idea by talking to the type of people you want to serve or using surveys to gather their opinions.
He recommends not spending time creating a business that you think people want, but instead finding out from them what they do actually want and whether they are willing to pay for it.
I’m not sure how confident I’d be talking to people about their pain points, but the idea of validating your business concept before investing too much time, energy or money in it certainly makes a lot of sense.
Apps to help your business
Ali and his team use a lot of apps and software programmes to run their business, many of which I had not heard of. These include Notion, Superhuman, Rise and Scoreapp.
There seem to be so many out there that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and a little out of touch, but the key message Ali puts across it to work sequentially instead of coming up with an idea and thinking you need to do everything at once.
The importance of setting goals
He also talks about the importance of setting goals, but not to have too many as that can cause you to lose focus. He suggests having one main goal which will help you focus on what you are working towards.
He says the goal may change over time but at least you are talking action and moving forward. It’s fine to pivot and change direction but to do that you need to be moving in the first place and not standing still waiting to start.
Nike’s phrase ‘Just Do It’ comes to mind.
Discovering an idea you’re passionate about
There’s a clear message to about finding something you are passionate about as you’ll be investing so much time and energy into it. You won’t be able to do that day in day out if it’s not something that interests you.
For him, it started off as productivity and he’s gone on to create courses and write a book on that very topic called Feel Good Productivity.
Cultivate the ability to focus
Ali talks about the fact there are so many distractions around us such a social media notifications, text messages, WhatsApp messages and all the other things going on around us.
He argues that the quality of our life is directly proportional to our ability focus, and this makes a lot of sense.
He often puts his phone on focus mode, which is not something I had heard of before, and keeps his phone face down on his desk so as not to be distracted by it.
Too often I find myself picking up my phone out of habit, not fully aware I’m doing it, so I will probably put it in another room out of sight.
From distraction to traction
He also talks about a quote in a book he read called Indistractable by Nir Eyal where the author points out that the opposite of distraction is traction, which means doing something intentionally to move towards where you want to go.
Distraction therefore takes away from this. It happens when we intend to one thing but end up doing something else, such as my plan to learn Adobe InDesign which turned into an hour spent scrolling on TikTok.
And social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are deliberately designed to keep you on their platforms, which can make them incredibly addictive.
Having a plan and being present
He talks about the benefits of being present in the moment and focusing on one thing, and outlines techniques to help with this.
These include having a plan of what you want to do, blocking out time to work on those things, using Generative AI, especially if you are a content creator (just Google Hudspot and ChatGPT for a free downloadable guide), and tapping in to how you feel as there could be a negative emotion could be the root cause of the distraction.
Being aware of negative emotions
We could be distracted in an attempt to avoid boredom, anxiety or self-doubt. We could be questioning our ability to successfully complete a task and to succeed at it, which takes away from the process of actually doing it.
Fear of failing can block us from being able to talk action, so we go onto social media instead or end up watching a film on Netflix.
We can also get bored, especially is a task is repetitive, so Ali asks us to think about what we could do to make it fun.
Attention residue
Ali introduces the concept of attention residue first introduced by Professor Sophie Leroy which shows that when you switch from one task to another, your attention does not instantly follow.
There is a residue of your focus that remains on the first task, which can negatively impact on your performance on the second task as your brain has not fully transitioned to focusing on it.
The learning here is to focus on one task at a time, rather than trying to do several tasks at once as the brain is simply not designed to split our focus across multiple things.
Some people may say they can multitask, but if this requires focusing on several different tasks at once, they will not be operating efficiently. Better to do one task well than several poorly.
7-day focus crash course
Ali recently launched a 7-day focus crash course where you receive daily emails with strategies, principles and evidence-based tips for becoming more focused throughout your day.
The course is completely free. There’s a waitlist at the time of writing but I’ve signed up and will wait for the first instalment.
Taking breaks
Ali talks about a tech company that wanted to know the difference between their most productive employees and their least, and found that the most productive worked fewer hours and took more breaks.
They would work intensively for around 52 minutes, doing deep work and focusing on just one single task, then take the next 17 off, which they discovered by putting a time-tracking device on their computers.
During the 17 minutes they took off they were resting, not checking notifications and actively taking a break before starting on the next task.
Some people could use these insights to set a certain amount of time to work on a task, or, instead, work until they are aware they are losing focus and looking for a distraction, then know it is time to take a break.
Surrounding yourself with like-minded people
We’ve all heard the phrase that we are the product of the five people we surround ourselves with, so Ali talks about the importance of spending time with people on a similar entrepreneurial journey, of the benefits of having mentors and coaches, and also learning from those who are further ahead on their journey than we are.
There’s logic to this, as these are all people we can be inspired by, who share our entrepreneurial ambitions, who can motivate us, and who we can offer support and advice to, making it a two-way process that benefits us all.
A snapshot of Ali’s content
All of this is just a snapshot of some of the areas he covers and his YouTube channel is definitely worth checking out.
It also links to the other resources he offers on his website such as his newsletter, articles and Productivity Lab which is a community of ambitious entrepreneurs, creators and professionals.
Having consumed all of this information, I now need some thinking time to process it all. Ali talks about enjoying the entrepreneurial journey rather than focusing purely on the goal you want to reach, and so far I’m loving it.