Transcription
Hey guys, my name is Ali Al caragi. I am a systems engineer at the NASA J Forlan lab, and in this video, I'm going to show you how you can double your productivity for the rest of your life using systems in under two hours.
And this video is made out of frustration. I am really, really frustrated with a lot of the productivity content that's on YouTube. That's actually why I started this channel, just out of sheer frustration. Um, 99% of what's being taught is completely wrong, in my opinion. People are like, "Add this Notion template, add things to your life, use this very complicated thing, buy my course on how to, I don't know, build Notion templates and Asana and Trello and all these things." And people just make productivity so complicated for absolutely no reason.
And I am someone who's very, very productive. I did my PhD at only 26 years old. I graduated PhD in engineering at only 26 years old. I work at NASA. I run two companies, one around helping entrepreneurs, one around helping engineering students. Um, and I'm still able to have time to travel, spend with my family, and do all that. And again, people really have productivity backwards.
So, what I want to do in this video is walk you through my productivity system, what I have been using, what has helped me be very, very productive. And again, not only build profitable businesses, grow my, my, my, my engineering YouTube channel, um, using this exact same system, I was able to grow it to around 30,000 subscribers. Um, I also use this exact same system, uh, to grow my LinkedIn profile. And over here, here I have made a post, my most recent post has 16,000 likes and over a million views. Uh, and again, all of this is really based on a very, very, very simple, uh, productivity framework, which I call it "Four Steps to Hyperfocus."
But, uh, it starts with one very, very important step, which is subtract. And this is something I really want to emphasize, very, very important. Uh, productivity is, is not about adding things to your life. It's, it's, it's 90% about removing things from your life, right? Productivity is subtractive, it's not additive. People think that, "Oh, in order to be productive, I need to do more of XYZ. I need to do and and and and." And that's a completely wrong way to think about it. Yes, you need to have a system and you need to add something in your life that helps you stay organized and be productive, but you can only do that once you have subtracted the stuff that's not making you productive.
I'll give you an example. If I have this mug right here that I'm trying to grab it, and I'm trying to go with my hand to reach for it, but there's like something in the way. There's like something blocking it, like there's this in the way, and I can't grab it because this thing is stopping me right here. This tripod, in this case, the only way I can grab the mug is I have to first remove the tripod, and then I can go grab the mug. And right, depending on how I'm holding the mug right there, there are techniques for how to hold it more productively and more efficiently. But without removing the obstacle, you'll never be as productive.
So, step one to become productive is you need to figure out the stuff that is sucking away your time and attention. This could be your phone, this could be your computer, this could be toxic people in your life. Like, you really got to make a list of all the things that, um, are just sucking away your productivity. And then you got to remove it. Only then, once you have removed it, then you can add something. And you add a productivity system.
Now, in my opinion, the most efficient productivity system has to be something that addresses the four pillars of productivity. Uh, this is especially true if you're someone higher up on the ADHD spectrum. So, if you're someone with ADHD or higher up on the ADHD spectrum, you tend to struggle with all these things, right? ADHD just basically means your brain has too many ideas and you're just kind of in a constant state of confusion. And you try to like sit down and do something, but then you get distracted, you get pulled away by something, you struggle to focus on tasks, you may get started, but you may not finish, you get bored very easily. Uh, so you need to focus on four things. Your productivity system has to be simple enough, but still advanced enough to focus on four things.
Number one is clarity. Your system has to give you clarity on what it is that you need to do, right? You need to have a clear goal set out and a clear target. Because if you don't have a goal or a target you're going after, if you don't have a clear reason why you're going after that goal or target, you're not going to achieve anything. You're just going to keep going out, going around in circles.
Once you achieve the clarity step, then you need a system, a subsystem for prioritization. You need to figure out what action that is it that you need to work on. And I'll give you, for example, like a very simple personal example. Let's look, look over here, for example. If I have a goal, let's say, I don't know, to support my parents financially and do a bunch of things, and I categorize it by, by, by category, let's say in my business, or in my job, or my other business. Uh, you need, you need a system that helps you figure out what is it that's the first step you got to take, right? Like, you need to figure out, okay, based on my big picture goal and based on, um, what it is that I'm trying to achieve in, for example, for this week, and the bottleneck I need to solve, what is, what is the action I need to take?
And a very simple way to think about this is you can think of the way it prioritizes as, "Oh, I, I, to achieve a goal, again, what's stopping me from achieving the goal? What is the obstacle in between?" And if I alleviate and solve the obstacle, then I can achieve the goal more clearly. That's a very simple way to think about prioritization. You prioritize the action that helps you solve the problem that's getting in the way of your goal. And that's a simple example. There are other techniques to prioritize.
Once you prioritize and you figure out what it is that you need to do, choosing the right action, so that when you work hard, you're not just wasting your time, and you're actually working hard on the right thing, then you need to learn how to manage your time. And the way I do that is there's a very simple heuristic I kind of use, an opt-out rather than an opt-in approach to time management. And what I mean by that is most people look at time management completely wrong, in my opinion. Um, most people will say, "Oh, I need to do XYZ. When should I do it? Maybe I should schedule it for tomorrow? Maybe I should schedule it for whenever." But the way I think about it, that's an opt-in approach where like I have to opt in to do the task. And I think that's completely, the wrong way to look at it if you're trying to be productive and if you're trying to be fast.
The way I look at it is I have an opt-out approach where once I identify a very clear, high-priority task, what is stopping me from doing it right now? Why can't I do it now? Can I do it in one hour? In two hours? Can I do it today? Can I do it tonight? And I need a very strong and convincing reason for why I can't do it now, or today, or in one hour, or in two hours. And only then do I go and schedule it, right? And again, this becomes much easier if you've done a good job with step one, which is subtract, right? Figuring out exactly what it is in your life that you, you need to remove to, to, to create the mental bandwidth and to declutter. And if you can't do it now, then later this afternoon. And if you can't do it later this afternoon, then later tonight. And if you can't do it later tonight, only then you schedule it for tomorrow morning, very first thing. If you can't do it tomorrow, very first thing, you have to take your kids to school, you have whatever it is, then you have to set an implementation intention. "I'm going to do it 6:00 tomorrow at this time at my desk, and this is how I'm going to get started." If you don't do that, good luck being productive because your brain is going to get sucked into so many things in our, in our busy everyday world, and you just won't get to do it.
And then, only when you've taken care of the time piece, then you'll have to take care of the execution. Only then execution really becomes your bottleneck. And this is something that really frustrates me, that's why I speak with such burning passion about this. Most ADHD programs, ADHD coaching programs, productivity coaching programs, they focus only on execution. They're like, "Oh, if you want to sit down and do the work, set a 25-minute timer, do the Pomodoro technique, and all this other very corny stuff that does not address the real problem." You should only talk about execution once you've solved the clarity, prioritization, and time problems, right? These are the three more important things.
And the execution, in my opinion, execution is about self-talk, right? Like, most people think execution is just about like, "Just start, bro," or like, "Oh, just set a timer, bro," or like these things. Like, yes, they, they can help, they're tactical. But the real problem with execution is self-talk. It's how you talk to yourself, right? If you're having a hard, if you know exactly what you need to do, and and you know when you should do it, and you have everything laid out, and you still sit down and you, and you can't get started, there's some internal resistance based on a, there's a self-talk problem, there's a software problem. Uh, you're, there's either fear of failure. You're either saying, "I don't want to start this task. I'm going to procrastinate it because if I never start, then I never fail. And if I never fail, then I never feel bad about myself." Uh, this is especially true if you have perfectionist tendencies. If you're someone who struggles with perfectionism, or if you're someone like, you feel like you have to do the perfect job each time, very often procrastination on a high-importance task comes from fear of failure, right?
And the way to address that is very, very simple: is to use logic. Is to tell yourself, "Okay, if I try this and I fail, will that be the end of the world? And if I try this and it succeeds, how, how would that make me feel? Feel? Will I feel better after?" And then you take it a step further. And then you say, "Okay, if I try this and I fail, can I try it again a second time? How long is it going to take me to try and fail? And how long is it going to take me to try the second time? And how long is it going to take me to try a third time if needed?" Now, if I add that time A and time B and time C, uh, they're still going to be way shorter than the time I've been procrastinating on the task. So then, is it, should I, should I do this with the intention of failing, maybe?
And this is very, very powerful. This actually something I learned at SpaceX. And actually made an entire, um, kind of, very similar about this on my other channel, my engineering channel, where I was talking about how when I was inside SpaceX, I learned something very powerful from SpaceX engineers. Is they make, they set goals and and try to intentionally fail. And they try to figure out why they failed. And then they learn from their mistakes. And then they iterate so fast. That's why SpaceX is such a fast company because they are not perfectionists. They they intentionally try things to see why they failed and then they learn from it. And again, that's only one example of execution self-talk. There's other things such as lack of clarity, there's like other things that you can tell yourself to get started. But execution really is a psychological thing. It's like stories and and limiting beliefs and things that you tell yourself that create resistance and fear from getting started on the task.
Once you've done that, um, then the, the rest becomes very easy. Now you've created a system that helps you do the that. And then you basically need to divide certain times in the day where you do different aspects of the system. And then you need to multiply. What I mean by multiply, you need to every single day do the same thing. Um, basically follow the protocols, follow the routines, follow the system, follow that opt-in, opt-out practice, the self-talk. And basically, after only maybe like a week, uh, or two of doing this stuff consistently, it'll come naturally to you.
But the idea is, once you take maybe like an hour to subtract things from your life, and another hour to build like the proper productivity system, which again, engulfs, is is composed of these four pillars, then the divide and multiply steps are easy. You just basically do the same thing over and over and you maintain that level of productivity for the rest of your life. And not only are you like twice, three times, four times, five times, 10 times as productive, like you're just, you just feel good about yourself. Your self-esteem becomes so high because you're getting things done, you're a doer. And when you're not getting things done, when you're procrastinating, you know exactly why. You know how to self-diagnose whether it's a clarity problem, prioritization problem, time management problem, execution problem. You're able to tell what is it that's stopping you from doing the thing.
Once you do that, you are very, very productive, you're very happy, you have high self-esteem. Then you can have a full-time job, you can grow two companies, YouTube channel, travel 33 countries. Like, then you only then do you really unlock your full potential in life is by removing as much crap from your life as possible, adding the most efficient bespoke system for yourself, and then basically figuring out which parts of the day to do what based on your genetics, based on your chronotype, based on your set of behaviors, based on your personality. You need to really get to know yourself in this step. And then finally, you just got to be consistent. And again, consistency is very easy once you have the right structure and systems in place. And you need just enough structure to be productive, but not too much where you're suffocating. So this again, like, there's an art to building the right system for you.
Now, if you want to dive deeper into this system, especially the productivity system that I have, I will put a link in the description for a more in-depth program that I put together. It's basically called "Double Your Productivity Using an ADHD System Invented by NASA Engineer." And what I do is I go in more depth with these steps and I show you exactly step by step, uh, what to do, how to do it. And, um, you can, you can, you can check this out. And this thing is going to make you insanely productive. I built it for myself. I, I built it by myself for myself first, and only then I tested it on others. Um, and I strongly encourage you to go ahead and check it out. It's going to make you more productive. If you don't like it, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. This is for you, it's going to make you more productive. If you don't want it, that's fine. You can watch my other YouTube videos and that should at least be helpful to you. But again, keep in mind that productivity, when it comes to productivity, always subtract before you add. Before you spend a lot of time obsessing over the, the most amazing productivity system, figure out what kind of things you need to remove from your life.
Okay, with that being said, I will see you in the next next video. Peace, love.