Real Economist Reacts to 2024's Biggest Productivity Book

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We finally have Ali Abdaal's Feel-Good Productivity. How is it?
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[@richardtittle351]

I like this quote from Ali's book - "My hope is that you leave this book an amateur ‘productivity scientist’: finding some methods that work, discarding others," - I would also agree with this video review, as I understand it saying that Ali's book is a good compendium of many techniques covered in other books. Also, I particularly like Ali's "find the fun" message.

[@wilfredpeake9987]

I have difficulty improving your productivity but when you did the graph I immediately understood the bigger picture on how I can improve myself thankyou

[@schneeaddict]

It's also worth remembering that research based on effects in samples extrapolated to the population are focused on average effects. By definition, this means not every individual will get the benefit (whereas applying the prescription to a large group of people would lead to an expected overall benefit). So even if the science is sound, for your own individual application it's worth experimenting to see if it works for YOU. Kind of like Craig's comment on Benjamin Franklin who tested things and found what worked for HIM. Scientific research provides a great starting point for tailoring to your individal needs though.

[@tuckerbugeater]

The average person follows the common narrative. They want humans to act like swarms.

[@faizasultana2476]

As an economics student, I was contemplating buying it and waiting for a review. Thanks for the vid!

[@dwmichaels]

In some ways, I feel like we read a different book :) How curious! I agree about the numerous study references as well as the (unfortunate) de-bunking of many of the experiments over the last couple of years. The whole scientific community has been put under high scrutiny due to those discoveries. I do believe Ali offered numerous stories from his own life about what he changed and how it benefitted him. I might also disagree with the book's main idea. I don't think it is about how much can you get done in x time, it's about doing more of the things that bring you joy. Dan Sullivan talks about this concept as well - find the work you love doing, and do more of it. What you have to do that you don't like, look to see if you can delegate it or automate it. This seems to have more application for entrepreneurs, but it's a great concept. I also agree with your comments about a lot of the territory of the material being covered elsewhere. That said, I think it's hard to find much new material today. Almost everything has been written about before at some point. I think the real allure of the book is Ali, his voice and perspective. I've been told by others that sometimes it takes that one person, phrase or book to make a concept click. I thought it was a great idea to point out where folks might be in terms of the number of books they've read about the topic. At least then you can adjust your expectations for the material. I do like how Ali will bring concepts like James Habit's Atomic Habits to life with how he has implemented them in his life. He re-enforces the power of your systems which allow you to achieve your goals. Everything I've read on the topic suggests that scientific information will not sway us - it is emotions that will sway us, and the appeal of Ali's book is an emotional one. Follow these tips and find more joy and happiness in your life. I did listen to the audiobook, and it was enjoyable to listen to Ali read the material. On another note - while priming isn't as impactful as originally depicted, I don't think it was proven to not exist. I think most of that research is more like a "good chance" instead of "this is how people always behave". What I took away from Thinking, Fast and Slow, was System 1 and System 2 and how much of our lives we spend in automatic mode! Good honest review. Respect.

[@4quadrantsnz69]

Good points and well explained. I, somehow, believe you can be another good writer 🙂

[@TheRealTommyR]

This information was very wise. Specifically, I like how you took the real concepts at play and reduced them to an easily understandable chart and provided advice based on it. Stellar, accurate, and so useful. I also like how you pointed out the shaky psychology research that is always sited in comparison to real stories. Like another commenter, I almost stopped the video shortly after it started, but am glad I stuck it out. Thanks for the honest, wise, and helpful advice.

[@hxfx6771]

What I am seeing is each KZbinr taking bits and pieces from the books like you mentioned and presenting it as a new way of doing things. They give credit to the other authors but most are using the same few books as reference. It ends up being only new because of what smorgasbord is presented.

[@mattseibert]

What you said about study’s is spot on. I have worked with developing and coaching people over the last decade, hands on in the trenches with them. When I hear some of these influencers that promote a study I can tell they don’t know what they are talking about in real life scenarios

[@faridarahman2659]

The Deworming episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast gets at your points so well too

[@TheIllerX]

Yes, I noticed the same thing after reading tons of similar books. I would probably myself be able to write a book collecting all the ideas in the books, which really are not that many to be honest. Occasionally some book you read have several original ideas, or at least one main idea that is a bit new, but most doesn't even have that. Typically the author belives he or she has made some important insight that might be useful to other people so he/she writes a book. The format of most these books are usually extremely predicable. You get to hear tons of personal stories or events from real life where people struggled and had a problem, but then they made some insight and did something differently and now they are happy, world famous or whatever. Then the author tells about some psychology studies why the idea is good. If you are happy the author at least try to convert the advice into something that is actually actionable. Bashing books is fun, so lets take one example of my own. A book many people seem to like and which is very famous, is the book "Grit". Basically the author thinks she has made some extraordinary insight into why some peole succeed and some don't. It is not intelligence, genes, or hard work alone, its Grit. She invents a new words to make it seem like something new, but from the book you realize it just means basically a combination of endurance and skill. So if you don't give up and have and develop skill you do better. Duh. From this nonsens she writes a book with tons of stories and examples of people having Grit and people who don't. The books is, as I see it, completely and utterly useless. Exacly what do I learn from knowing that Grit = endurande + skill is important to succeed? I already knew that and it does not contain any advice I can use. It is like saying that people who are are rich can afford a lot of things. The same goes for books like "The 5 second rule" or even more similar "Mindset". A book totally about one useless and non actionable idea. In "Mindset" we learn about the key difference between a growth and a fixed mindset, basically "eager to learn" vs "depressive mindset where you believe your skills and fixed and you cannot learn." Yes, the first one is preferrable, duh again. I can come with some similar good advice "It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick." This is also totally useless. It does not by itself say anything about how one actually achives this mindset. The 5 second rule contains all you want to know in the title "Say to yourself you do anything in 5 seconds". This is the only advice in the book. And it is repeated in tons of stories. But sure, it is an actionable advice, which is more than can be found in most books. The amout of useless text for each actionable advice is extremely low for most books in the genre.

[@MrJat227]

Part of the problem with productivity books is that individuals are so heterogeneous. What works for one person might not work for someone else. And what might work at one point in your life might stop working. It all gets down to doing the stuff that you don't want to do, but which makes progress. It is an eternal problem.

[@bepreparedforwhatscoming4975]

What does being an economist have to do with this book?

[@yusufrasooly6074]

Great comment!

[@TenantRepGuru]

Great review. Thank you.

[@kartikjambur7392]

Just thinking about doing more tasks in your day, I believe that the "Marginal Benefit" Curve would be concave rather than convex. The drop in benefit cannot be significantly large from the second task itself. Any thoughts?

[@BookMattic]

Thanks so much for making this as Feel Good Productivity is a book I will most likely not read in the near future due to the research not being proven, solid, or applicable across fields. Saved me time here.

[@islandsociete]

From this video on: my view on productivity and productivity books will be permanently changed. I have never thought about it through the P-Q graphs, and now my economist brain will always translate this genre of books to see how the shape, slope and shift of the Marginal Benefit and Marginal Cost curves are affected...

[@gkbrown2443]

‘Winning Through Intimidation’by Robert Wringer is a productive book from long ago --read this it’s the GOAT! I’ve got Ali’s book but haven’t read it yet ,I’ve watched Ali everyday for years and I think I know what’s in his book!

[@rolf7135]

Nice presentation and summing up in a diagram of this genre of books. I agree with you and think books that are about building a system or a method are more useful, like "Getting Things Done" ,"The 80/20 Principle" or "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking"(essentially about learning; and here there are probably more books that could be useful for students). It is probably not a bad thing to read such a book once in a while, but good to be aware that they are very similar so the marginal usefulness is very limited. I read Ali Abdaal's book, mostly as I see some of his KZbin videos, and thought it would be interesting to read his approach, but draw the same conclusion; this is probably the last book in this genre I am buying. I guess that there will come a wave of books using AI to become more effective (there are already some, but I think they are more about methods), but I think the approach of researching it yourself is probably going to be more beneficial.

[@TheIllerX]

I agree with this. Many so called self help books does not have much actionable content. I love to read and learn though. But I think it is in general better to read more science based books for example about learning. The book "5 elements of essential thinking" you mention is one of my favourites when it comes to structuring your thinking. It is pretty short with very concrete advice which is actually useful.

[@rolf7135]

@@TheIllerX I also like it very much. It is short concise and gives useful insights. This is the one book that I probably have given away most, to young adults going to study. I have also received feedback that they found it very useful (it is some years ago now and there are more similar books).

[@edkk2010]

They are recycled bs. Those ''experts" are fake guru selling your courses. Their "methods" are not proven in any real-world example besides self-help industry.

[@2ears1mouth786]

man, i think this was brilliant. your points about the research and science based books versus the stories (often ancient) is something i find increasingly true. i've not heard anyone say what you did on the benefit of reading "more" productivity books. a few tools in use are better than 100 in the attic.

[@Faiad_Mohammad]

super good video. same feeling after reading this book.

[@gulfwinds]

I am incredibly skeptical about self-help books in general, not just those about productivity. I am even more skeptical about books on productivity, because the emphasis on productivity in the western world, over the past few centuries, has taken us on a path of self destruction. I am also very skeptical about economics - coming from a tradition of three generations of economists, as most of what you say in this video about psychology could be said about economics. :)

[@T1TT2]

thanks for the video . I studied business but I am a reader of economics and economic history. Indeed, economic history books are mostly Keynesian or "left" leaning. It is difficult to find bibliography that has a different perspective. And they also have problems of not having data and being very interpretive. I don't know if you have read How the world became rich by Koyama, it is a great book. For Latin America you could read Bulmer Thomas (left bias too) although his view is structuralist and he considers that the ISI is the solution (something that failed in Latin America) however it is a very good book with very good data. Another author would be Carlos Parodi but he only writes in Spanish and behind the left by Sebastian edwards .Please continues to recommend books on economic history, it is a very beautiful field and I think it is the one that brings us closest to the truth from an economic perspective. I will read your recommendation, thank you. Im train BJJ to .

[@LungteNangram]

Please make a video on Game Theory. My college does not offer this class for Economics major. Is it an important course?

[@tuckerbugeater]

Just read the Selfish Gene; that's all you need to know about it

[@Apostolisdr]

Hi! I'm also an econ major and I just took a Game Theory course. I think it's worth it if you're interested in understanding monopolistic/oligopolistic strategies and behaviours. (Think about it more as an applied microeconomics course). Happy new year!

[@DavoZed]

Someone who is supposedly an expert in economics, commenting on the work of someone who is supposedly an expert in productivity. Why? Would he accept Ali Abdaal's critique of his economic work? Of course not.

[@knw-seeker6836]

At the same time lots of economic students and graduates say that it isn’t really useful or practical in the real world Psychology basically would not be a science without statistics I think there is so much manipulation because you can’t Observe like in physics or chemistry On the other hand when money and hierarchy benefits are involved people don’t care about good science I’m really not interested in productivity books anymore because so much was written about it and I even can’t stand advertisements of companies in which influencers do the job instead of an actor / athlete Interesting time we live in 😂

[@murdermittensnyc]

Love that you pointed out the difference between actual fraud (plenty of that in social science research) and just poor study design or poor study analysis. I taught math/logic/stats for years to our best and brightest Finance professionals from some of the most prestigious schools and ... very few understand order of magnitude. Or fractions. Fundamental, basic concepts. Shocking. So if our quant jocks don't know to push back on the social science bologna . . . how would average joe and jane. You're doing good work here!

[@murdermittensnyc]

also, science cannot by definition "prove" anything. It can only disprove.

[@alexandercruz2782]

I almost gave up on this video at around 3 minutes… but I like the turn it took 😅 As an economist (a heterodox economist) I appreciate being able to read “feel-good self help motivational” stuff without having to think about inverted plots of decreasing marginal returns 😂

[@SalmanMKC]

what book would you recommend is a good one instead of this?

[@faizasultana2476]

Yep even I wanna know

[@tuckerbugeater]

What problem are you trying to solve?@@faizasultana2476

[@zeenkosis]

7 habits is a classic and atomic habits

[@selfmadechampion]

It would be a great idea to document our own productivity journey and create a book out of it!

[@holasoyjose9683]

12:15 you hit the nail man...tired of being advised by heroes, or athletes, as if my profession, my life and my problems had something to do with those people's (by the way,...economic research often sucks: ie Esther Duflos' research about poverty is among one of the multiple scams and signs of poor intelligence we are talking about)

[@cunningham.s_law]

habit stacking is a result of psychology too. why believe in that and not the rest?

[@tuckerbugeater]

trying to optimize the brain is a fool's errand

[@cunningham.s_law]

an economist that looks at everything through the cost benefit lens how surprising

[@tuckerbugeater]

simple strokes for simple folks

[@sidneyristock8754]

You lost your way around the 14 min mark. Until then, it was a really insightfull video. Regards.

[@goodgirlsguide]

You haven't actually read the book though as you site no research, no content, no tips, nothing. You just wanted to draw your graph. Not even a summary of content that you could have swiped form the content page. Not that I would buy it and waste time reading it anyway.

[@dumbllama8495]

Ali Abdal is great at wasting others time by telling them how to not waste it. although, it still pains me how you butchered his name.

[@skywriter9359]

Why be mean? Many love Ali’s advice.

[@rionvalet]

​@@skywriter9359 he's a hater.

[@edkk2010]

@@skywriter9359 Because many cannot see through his BS. His credential of being a productivity expert comes from his Cambridge MD. YT and his successful course-selling business are not real-world experience others can relate to. You are better off learning how other people failed in your related fields than listening to a fake guru telling you how he became so successful at selling you self-help stuff.

[@Wingedmagician]

Ali is a youtuber. wasting peoples time is a way of putting it. you could say that about literally any form of media or content 🙄

[@Jaredonian]

Common econ professor W

[@natekarren659]

If you’ve read Q*, you’ve read them all

[@karanm2129]

You sir have hit the nail. I myself an economist as well as a psychologist - this book and most of the productivity books are just a shot in the dark room. You have actually put it out in the right away. Loved it

[@CalicoCooperFan]

I'm a big fan of Ali Abdaal and have been watching his videos and learning from him for years. As Ali described this book, his description didn't do anything for me. He was dismissing the concept of self discipline in favor of his "feel good productivity." So, i've held off and haven't bought this book. I cant see myself buying it.

[@DG-lb6wk]

How would someone know a study wasn’t valid, before it is proven to be false? Are you saying psychology in general shouldn’t be trusted? Or that Ali used false studies? Using research as a basis for an argument seems reasonable. I guess I didn’t get the point of this video. The graphs were good but the rant about psychology research and authors that use them, as a basis for this review didn’t help me with whether or not Ali wrote a good book.

[@Wingedmagician]

wonderful video about productivity books. horrible video about Alis book tho 😅

[@dabbyfps]

He thinks alot about economics but not about keeping his shot in focus 🤨

[@edkk2010]

Let me say this: "Ali Abdaal is NOT a productivity expert". He got a MD from Cambridge. He might study really hard during the time but that alone did not make him more a expert than any other graduate from Cambridge. Abdaal is a YT influencer selling overpriced courses to his fans. No originality whatsoever.

[@Eldeecue]

...no one that actually has discovered any trick, or strategy for "getting rich", will ever, ever, ever share it with you, for any price. Otherwise, they'd be rich and wouldn't be bothered to do jack shit, much less prepare seminars or videos on.....anything.

[@susiepitt2232]

boring !!! you are so academic you lost me in the first few minutes ....making others look bad so you can look good NO not nice

[@Tyrone-Fields]

Common econ professor W

[@BlushnBlue]

Great review, thank you.