If you're new here, my name is Ali.

I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and the author of Feel Good Productivity, which is about how to do more of what matters to you in a way that's enjoyable, meaningful, and sustainable.

And this is the first episode of a three-part series about how to manage your time outside of your nine-to-five job.

Now, this is a topic that's really close to my heart because I started this YouTube channel and my business, and basically every good thing in my life has happened as a result of me being able to manage my time outside of the time where I had a nine-to-five job when I was working full-time as a doctor.

And really, this video series is for people who, for example, have a nine-to-five, whether you're a student or a professional or whatever, and you want to do stuff outside of it, but you maybe struggle to have the time and energy to do the stuff outside of the nine-to-five.

And the stuff might be starting a business or growing a side hustle or this sort of thing, but it might not be.

It might also be just taking up a hobby or making progress on that language that you're trying to learn, or even just giving more time to your friends and family.

And so really, in this video series, I wanna try and share as many tips as I can so that you can take away some kind of philosophies or mindsets or experiments to run in your own life that can help you achieve more of the things that really matter to you outside of your nine-to-five.

And so in this video, we're gonna be talking about the foundational mindsets and philosophies that you need to manage your time appropriately outside of your nine-to-five.

In video two, we're gonna be talking about how to not waste your life, all the time drains that get in the way.

And then in video number three, we're gonna talk about the five skills that you need to master in order to become amazing at time management.

Depending on when you're watching this, these videos may well be out, so they'll be linked down in the video description.

And I would recommend you watch them in order because then you get the philosophy before worrying about the tactics.

All right, mindset number one, time management is a really valuable skill to work on.

Now, the unfortunate truth is that we are all going to die.

And the other unfortunate truth, or maybe fortunate truth, is that time is our single most valuable non-renewable resource.

We can always make more money, but we can never make more time.

The fact that you're here watching this video, maybe subscribe to my channel, means that you care enough about this topic.

You care about personal development, personal growth.

You probably want to make the most of your time outside of your nine-to-five, but you might be, like I was back in the day, feeling a little overwhelmed with all the stuff that there is to do.

And I think sometimes people will dismiss this to be like, well, people who teach about time management, they're just promoting hustle culture or toxic productivity or any of that stuff.

But this is not about getting you to work harder.

This is not about getting you to hustle harder.

This is literally about us appreciating that our time is our own to do with as we like.

And if we tell ourselves the story that we're bad at time management, and we haven't actively worked on the skill of time management, then we fall into the default of like turning on the TV, going on Netflix, and just clicking yes on whatever the recommendation has in store for us.

We fall into the unintentional default of just going on our phones and habitually picking TikTok or Instagram or YouTube and just sort of scrolling and watching the videos.

And the thing that made this hit home for me when I started to get into this productivity, procrastination, time management type stuff, the thing that really made it hit home was that I didn't want to be in a position where a few decades from now, I would look back on my life and I would feel like I'd squandered the time and the energy that I had when I was younger.

Realistically, I'm probably not gonna remember the TV shows that I watched, unless they're absolutely amazing.

Game of Thrones, for example.

I'm very unlikely to remember the time I spent scrolling YouTube shorts or Instagram or TikTok.

But if I use my time intentionally and effectively on the things that I wanted to use it at the time, on like the hobbies or friends and family or building my business, whatever the thing might be, I'm far more likely to sort of give a high five to my younger self.

And so really the problem we're dealing with here is not a toxic productivity or hustle culture type thing.

I'm not telling you you just have to be more productive.

What I'm suggesting is that time is so valuable and so important that spending a little bit of it, learning how to use it better, I think is a skill that all of us could benefit from.

Now, as a bit of a side note, one thing that actually helped me be more intentional about my nutrition when I was working a nine to five job and even beyond that, is Huel, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

Now, I've been a paying customer of Huel since 2017, since my fifth year of medical school.

And that was actually when I first started this YouTube channel as well.

And I've been eating Huel fairly regularly since then because it's a fantastic way to make sure that my nutritional bases are covered when I don't have the time, or I choose not to make the time to cook a healthy and nutritious meal.

Obviously, gold standard would be you cook and eat a healthy meal for every single meal of the day.

But in reality, with busy lives, and especially with a hectic work schedule, it can be often hard to make time to do that three times a day.

And the nice thing about Huel is that in those moments, instead of eating a totally unhealthy meal from like the work cafeteria or from like the Starbucks on the way to work, I can instead just eat Huel.

And most of the meals have 400 calories, at least 20 grams of protein, 26 vitamins and minerals and nutrients.

And so I know that my bases are at least covered.

Now, if you've been thinking of starting Huel, you should definitely check out their new bestseller bundle.

And this is a bundle of all of their bestselling products.

So you can see which one you like best.

It includes the Huel Black Edition, which is my personal favourite because it's a higher protein version of Huel.

It also includes some instant meals, nutrition bars and daily A to Z vitamin cans.

Yeah, I'm just genuinely a massive fan of Huel.

And I think it's amazing for those moments of the day where you don't have the time to have a proper healthy meal instead.

So if you're interested in checking out the bestseller bundle, then do check out the link in the video description.

And the bundle also includes a free t-shirt and a shaker, which are both actually really high quality.

And with the bundle, you also get a nutrition guide that gives you some advice on your own nutrition and also how to get the most out of Huel.

So thank you so much Huel for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it.

All right, mindset number two is you can do anything you want, but not everything you want.

If you're watching this video and if maybe you follow my channel, then you're probably the sort of person that takes on too much stuff.

You're probably quite ambitious.

You're probably quite hardworking.

You probably wanna thrive in your nine to five.

You wanna do all that work, but maybe you also wanna be intentional about your health and relationships and wanna level those up.

There is a phrase, there is a story that is wrongly attributed to Warren Buffett, but like, I think it's directionally legit.

I don't know where this attribution came from, but a guy called Alex Benayan once asked Warren Buffett at his Omaha conference.

Mr. Buffett, I've heard that one of your ways of focusing your energy is that you write down the 25 things you want to achieve, choose the top five and then avoid the bottom 20.

Buffett kind of laughed and said like, that was complete BS.

He has never said that.

Well, I'm actually more curious about how you came up with it, because it really isn't the case.

It sounds like a very good method of operating, but it's much more disciplined than I actually am.

But, you know, directionally, the advice is still legit, even if Warren Buffett never actually said the thing.

A lot of our priorities, five to 25, end up derailing and taking a lot of time away from the things that truly matter to us.

And really, we all have the best will in the world when it comes to this.

Like, you know, maybe you watch my channel and you're like, oh, it'd be pretty cool to be a YouTuber.

I want to start a YouTube channel.

And then maybe you're like, oh, you know, I'd love to write online.

You know, for me, I was like, I want to get better at the guitar.

I don't want to get better at piano.

I want to get better at singing.

I'd love to be able to play by ear.

Oh man, drawing would be really cool.

I'd love to learn how to draw.

You know what?

I'd love to learn Japanese, because I like watching anime.

And it's just, we keep on adding to the to-do list.

And we fail to realize that a big part of time management is about prioritization.

It's about knowing what you want to say no to, so that you have the time, energy and focus to truly say yes to the things that really matter.

And there is a story from my time as a doctor that I always think about.

This was when I was in my first week of working in the emergency department.

And I walk into the emergency department and I take a look in the waiting room.

And the waiting room is absolutely teeming with patients.

There's just so many people.

And I'm like, whoa, this is where the real medicine is at.

I'm going to save the lives.

I go to my computer and I go through the list.

And then I see the next patient in order of priority.

And by the end of the day, I've seen about eight patients because it takes me about an hour.

It's like an eight hour shift.

And I don't even take my lunch break because I've got the energy.

I've got the vibe, I've got the passion.

I'm going to save the lives.

And on my way home, I look in the waiting room and it's still absolutely teeming with patients.

It's still completely full.

What the hell?

And then on Tuesday, I'm like, all right, cool.

It's day two.

That was my first day.

I was a little bit inefficient.

I only saw one patient an hour.

Let me be more efficient with this.

Let me take two patients at a time.

Let me batch my calls to radiology.

Let me batch the bloods that I'm doing.

Let me sort of parallel process so there's no downtime.

And I was applying all of my kind of productivity principles to the seeing of patients.

And, you know, again, I skipped my lunch break and I saw 12 patients that day.

I managed to do one and a half patients an hour or 1.2 patients an hour, whatever the number is.

And then on my way home, I looked in the waiting room and it was still absolutely teeming with patients.

It was like nothing I did made any difference.

And then, okay, the next day I was like, what the hell's going on here?

And I mentioned this to one of the consultants and the consultant said to me, it's your first day, isn't it?

I was like, yeah, how do you know?

And he was like, yeah, cause everyone realizes this a few days to a few weeks in.

And what he said really has really stuck with me since.

He said, the waiting room will never be empty.

There will always be more patients to see.

All we can do is show up each day as our best selves and see patients in order of priority.

He also forced me to take my lunch break because it's like legally mandated that every four hours you have to take a lunch break because otherwise your focus and concentration falls.

And so I actually started taking my lunch breaks but that has really stuck with me because whatever you're doing with your job, whatever you're doing outside your job, whatever you're doing with your family, there is always more you could be doing.

You know, I've heard from parents.

It's like, you know, you think you're doing well at work and then you get home and it's like, you know, the school is saying you've got to bake a cake for the fricking bake sale.

You've got to do your parent teacher meeting.

You've got to do this and that.

You've got to sign up to be a governor of the board.

And if you're an entrepreneur, you know, I've got a business.

You might have a side hustle.

You know, there is always an infinite amount of work to be done.

The waiting room will never be empty.

But as long as we can show up each day as our best selves and crucially focus on things in order of priority, then in a way it doesn't matter if the waiting room is always full because as long as you are seeing the highest priority patients first, this is how a surgeon on the battlefield triage patients.

If someone's about to die, you see them first.

If someone's, you know, got a bit of a cough, you see them second and then you reprioritize.

I think of my entire to-do list and time management and like everything I'm trying to do with that metaphor.

The waiting room will never be empty.

Therefore, what I choose to do is just show up as my best self every day and focus on things in order of priority.

And if we can just do that every day forever, then we're not gonna be filled with regret that like we made the wrong decisions early on in our lives.

Oh, by the way, quick thing.

We've done some polling of the audience that watches this channel and listens to my podcast and stuff.

And one thing that people seem to continuously struggle with is focus.

And that is why I've prepared for you a completely free focus crash course, which is seven days of emails where I break down all of the most effective science and practical tips on how to actually focus better.

And you can get that completely for free at focuscrashcourse.com.

All right, mindset number three is that life maintenance is not the goal.

There are broadly two buckets of things that we can do with our time.

There are things that we have to do to maintain the status quo, to maintain our lives.

And then there are things that we can do to progress our lives.

And progress can be anything.