Transcription
Hey guys, my name is Ali aluli. I am a systems engineer and a post-doctoral fellow at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. And in this video, I want to show you how I beat productivity and I beat ADHD and I was able to finally achieve the final level of productivity using a very simple analogy.
And we're going to do something really cool in this video where I'm going to have you do an exercise with me right now in the video. That once you see it, the way I see it, you you'll never go back to the same way and you'll be changed forever.
Okay, so what I mean by, um, this this analogy over here is, is you can see over here there's a graph that says signal to noise, right? There's noise and their signal. I've made more videos that are like in-depth, like dopamine chemicals, brain structure, neurology, neurobiology, neuroscience, all that systems, all that cool stuff. Um, I do have these videos that go diver, uh, deeper, uh, into that stuff. But I want to make a very simple concept here, very, very clear. Productivity and AD in general, like from the productive perspective, is just a game of two variables, signal and noise. You want to increase noise, you want to increase signal, and you want to reduce noise. And I'll give you examples of how I do that in my life and examples of how you can do that in your life as well.
And this is a concept I have learned from doing my PhD in electrical engineering with a focus on satellite communication systems. Because very often what we need to do is when two satellites are talking to each other from very, very far distances, we want to make sure that by the time the signal reaches the other satellite, uh, there's still, uh, it's still strong enough where it does not get drowned out by the noise of the other electronics.
For ADHD or for productivity in general, it's very simple. Again, people make productivity to be very, very complicated. You need all these million complicated things that you need to do. You need to, I don't know, download Notion templates. And I can't stand Notion templates. If you use them, God bless, I'm not judging, but you don't need it. What you need is a very simple understanding of what's going on here.
So what I'm going to go ahead and do is have you with me right here. If you have a pen and paper, or if you have something, uh, to write with, is we're going to identify what is signal and what is noise in your life, right? And basically, signal is things that you want to do that help you achieve your goals. Noise is things that are distracting you from your goals that are that that you're not trying to, uh, achieve. And the only way to achieve again, harmony is to have a a strong gap between signal and noise.
So we're going to go ahead and do, before we define what is signal and what is noise, uh, you need to first define your goal, right? What is your goal? So I'm going to go ahead and give you a very personal example. So for example, I have my full-time at job. I have my full-time job at NASA. And then, um, and one of my, one of my companies that I'm running, Next Level Systems, uh, we're trying to help entrepreneurs, uh, be more productive, more useful to the world, make better decisions using systems, using algorithms, using frameworks I learned in engineering.
Um, so let's say my goal right now is to, uh, let's say grow my business. Again, it's kind of a very simple, uh, goal. Let's say grow my, grow Next Level Systems to 10 users per day. Okay? Let's say that that's the goal that I'm trying to optimize for, right? And then it's, I'm, I'm, it's going to be as simple as what, what is signal? What are the things I need to be doing, right? I to like, uh, sit down and make paid ads work, obsessively on product, make systems more optimized. These are obviously things that I need to do, right? Like, uh, in order to, to increase likelihood because if I have a great product, then people are going to be a lot more likely to buy it. And if I have a great, uh, if I have great marketing, and if I have great advertising, then people are a lot more likely to find out that I have a product in the first place that can help them, right?
Uh, so like, uh, signal, meet with team to ensure, um, clients are happy and system is improving. Meet with software team to ensure we are innovating. Things of that nature, right? This is signal. These are things I need to do, right? And then noise is going to be something like, and I'm going to make this a bit smaller just because I really want want it to be like on a single page. Again, this exercise seems like very, very simple, but it's very powerful.
Noise is going to be something like, I don't know, scrolling Instagram late at night. Um, I don't know, like something like arguing with people on Facebook, having too many tabs open, um, having too many notifications turned on. Toxic people. Uh, that's actually something about ADHD. Is because like people with ADHD, especially higher up on the AD spectrum, because you're very driven by curiosity and intrigue, and because of your dopamine reuptake issues, unfortunately, you can fall into, uh, relationships or friendships or things of that nature with toxic people. And you have to kind of, uh, I don't know, get yourself aware to to avoid, um, these kind of interactions.
But basically, what you go ahead and do is you figure out what you're trying to do. And and and if you want to take it a level deeper, you can say why? Why do I want to do this? Well, if I do this, then, like, um, I get to help so many people live better, happy lives. I get to feel better by myself knowing I'm helping people and putting my knowledge to use. And I get to make some side income, for example, so I can, I don't know, go do whatever I want, hire amazing people, go travel the world, see all these, these cool things.
Uh, obviously, the more compelling this is, the more emotional this is, the more likely your goal is going to make more sense. But I would strongly encourage you, just go ahead, sit down, write down what is what, what are you trying to do, right? What is it really that you want to do deep down? Why do you want to do it? And make a list of what is signal and what is noise.
And if you want to be hardcore, print that, print this page right here. You can go and you click print wherever, I don't know, the print, um, over here, and put it somewhere in your face where you see it every single day. Because what that's going to do is going to give you an extreme level of self-accountability. Because now when you're like scrolling Instagram late at night, or when you're arguing with people on Facebook, instead of, I don't know, sitting down and running paid ads, because that's what you want to do, because this is the life you want to live, that there's no escaping that. It's in your face, right? Especially if you're higher up on the ADHD spectrum, you will tend to struggle with memory and you're going to forget what your goal is and you're going to forget why you're doing it. And because again, people who are ADHD are are kind of more short-term focused, instant gratification focused, a lot less likely to be motivated by long-term goals. Having the thing like straight up in your face, like is going to be very, very helpful. Because then at least, like, you can be honest with yourself and say, okay, you know what, like, this is what I'm doing. I'm doing too much noise.
And if you want to be even more hardcore, you can have this graph over here. This visual helps me so much. So what you can do is you can basically, in addition to having this here, um, you can basically go and, um, let's see, we're going to insert this guy here and have this picture or like a picture similar to it. And let's, again, you can make this a little bit smaller just so it all fits in one page. You can make, you can make this one like centered, what not. But the idea is like having some type of reminder in your face of like the actions that you can do to be productive and the actions that are not going to help you be productive. That alone is like 80, 90% of the battle. Again, with distraction, with things that nature, obviously this is not like that and all be all cure. But believe it or not, this is how I beat productivity. It's just by conscious reminding and awareness of what I need to do.
Now, here's the second part. You need to actually, once you figure out what is signal and how to eliminate noise, you need the right system for actually sitting down and executing a signal. Because you're telling me, okay, Ali, I get it. I know I need to sit down and work on my business. I know I need to sit down and write ads. But I can't do them. And you are in luck because I made a video about that. Should pop up somewhere over here. So go ahead and watch that. Peace.