I’m Ali, a YouTuber, podcaster, author of New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, Feel-Good Productivity, and ex-Doctor working in London, UK.

I make videos that explore the strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives. I also have a weekly podcast called Deep Dive and I write a weekly email newsletter that contains some quick thoughts + links to interesting things.

I studied Medicine for 6 years at Cambridge University, and graduated in 2018. On my YouTube channel (4.5 million subscribers) I make videos about medicine, tech and productivity. 

📚 Check out my New York Times Bestselling Book Feel-Good Productivity: https://go.feelgoodproductivity.com/linkedin 
💌 Subscribe to my newsletter LifeNotes: https://aliabdaal.com/li/
🎬 Check out my YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/@aliabdaal
✍️ Visit my website and blog: https://aliabdaal.com/
🎙 Listen to the Deep Dive podcast: https://aliabdaal.com/podcast/
🎙 Listen to the Not Overthinking podcast: https://notoverthinking.com/
🚀 Learn more about my Part-Time YouTuber Academy: academy.aliabdaal.com

Ali Abdaal

I'm hiring! Full-time. Remote. Competitive Salary. 

An opportunity to work closely with me and the team.

We've been building the Lifestyle Business Academy - our alternative to traditional MBA programmes.

An MBA teaches you to build someone else’s business and graduate with debt.

LBA helps you build your own business and graduate with profit 😉

Now, we're looking for a Student Success Coach to join us in helping people build six-figure lifestyle businesses.

You'll be guiding 40-60 students through their entire entrepreneurial journey – from day one all the way to building a business that gives them genuine freedom. 

It's the kind of role where you're genuinely making a difference in people's lives, which is pretty cool.

If you’ve worked in customer success, coaching, or education, understand business fundamentals, and keen to work with a small team, this could be for you.

More details and application form here: https://lnkd.in/g2fGmpQZ

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Co-Founder

YouTuber

Founder

Doctor - Foundation Year 2

Doctor - Foundation Year 1

👨‍⚕️ Doctor-turned-Entrepreneur + Productivity Expert + YouTuber (6M subs)
📘 New York Times Bestselling Author of "Feel-Good Productivity"

English

Urdu

👨‍⚕️ Doctor-turned-Entrepreneur + Productivity Expert + YouTuber (6M subs) 📘 New York Times Bestselling Author of "Feel-Good Productivity"

2025 was a big year for me and Izzy - we had a baby!

But in the last trimester of Izzy’s pregnancy, a happily married friend gave me some brutal advice.

We were shopping for baby supplies - crib, pram, car seat, nappies, all that stuff.

I was in charge of sorting out the nappy changing station and Izzy wanted stuff sorted weeks in advance.

But I was more… last minute about it.

My attitude was basically: "we've got a store 10 mins away, we can always get stuff when we need it".

I thought I was being efficient.

Using the "Just in Time" approach that works great for businesses and generally how I do most things in life, i.e., fairly last minute.

I was like, who cares if the nappy bin arrives 2 months before the baby is due, or 2 days before the baby is due? Either way, it’s still in the house right?

Wrong.

At least that’s what my happily married-for-20-years friend told me.

She said, the "Just in Time" approach works when building a startup.

But when it comes to family, speed isn't the goal.

What my wife actually wants is security.
She's hoping I'll sort stuff out without being asked.
And if I'm asked, I'll do it without needing a reminder.

That hit hard.

I ran it by Izzy and she said: "That's what I've been trying to tell you!

So I started asking one follow-up question: "In an ideal world, would this be done TODAY, or THIS WEEK, or anytime in the next few weeks?"

And ever since, it's been glorious.

The question “when would you ideally like this done?” has become my secret weapon.

It made me realise that my default timeline for most things is usually 2-3× longer than what would actually be helpful.

And that different contexts need different approaches.

If you struggle to manage time effectively, I use an automated 168-hour audit spreadsheet that calculates where my time goes.

Get it here 👉 https://lnkd.in/e4wbiWxw

Helping 1M+ build sustainable productivity habits | Co-Founder @ Sparkle Studios | Cambridge Doctor | Mama figuring it out alongside you 💜

We're 14 days into 2026.

These 9 prompts can change what this year means for you.

I've been journaling pretty consistently since 2014.

And so many of the good things that have happened in my life have happened directly as a result of journaling consistently.

Like quitting medicine to do YouTube full-time.
Building my lifestyle business.
Moving to Hong Kong.

All of it came from asking myself the right questions.

Your life changes when you make a decision.

Not when you think about making a decision.
Not when you plan to make a decision.
When you actually make the decision.

These 9 prompts help you make those decisions.

They help you audit your energy, spot what isn’t working, and choose what you actually want next.

Set aside 10 minutes and go through them.

Grab a cup of coffee.
Find a quiet spot nearby.
And go through these prompts.

If you want to get all the journaling prompts I use to figure out what I actually want in life and make better decisions, get them here → https://lnkd.in/ghF6mHw5

♻️ Repost this to help your network start 2026 with more clarity. And follow me for more.

These 9 prompts can change what this year means for you.

I save 25+ hours every week with these 23 tiny habits.
None of them require waking up at 5am.
None of them require "hustle culture."
None of them are complicated.

Swipe through to see all 23 →

Want help putting this into practice?

I made a free template that helps you plan your week around what actually matters to you: https://lnkd.in/g4jjMvbW

♻️ Repost this if someone you know needs to hear it.

23 tiny habits that save me 25 hours a week

i built a $5m business before i was 30.
here’s what i’d do if i had to start again:
1. pick a freedom goal
2. start your own business
3. have a strong bias to action
4. always learn new things
5. stay in the game

i break all of these down in the carousel below 🙌

if you found it useful:
1. follow for more like this
2. drop a cheeky like (thank you 😉)
3. repost to share with someone who needs it

If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This

3 Reasons We Procrastinate and How to Beat It

1️⃣ Lack of clarity 
Not knowing where to start can feel overwhelming. Ask yourself: Why am I doing this? What does success look like this week?

2️⃣ Fear 
Procrastination often hides fear. Ask: What am I afraid of? What would the most confident version of me do?

3️⃣ Inertia 
Doing nothing makes it easier to keep doing nothing. Use the 5-minute rule, just start for 5 minutes and see what happens.

Beat procrastination without relying on motivation.

If you want to go deeper on this, my NYT bestseller book Feel-Good Productivity covers it in way more detail. Grab a copy here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gdJtSHka

3 reasons why we procrastinate, and what to do about it.

when the social media girl decides it’s content time…

what do you think of my dance moves? 😅🕺

In 2020, a 3-week experiment saved me 6+ years.

In 2026, if you're looking to change careers, this is for you.

In 2020, I'd just taken a break from medicine and was planning to move to Australia.

But the borders shut down because of the pandemic, and I accidentally became a full-time YouTuber.

But my dream life still included practising medicine part-time.

The doctors who seemed happiest worked part-time.
They enjoyed medicine but had time for other stuff.
This seemed like the perfect balance.

So I wanted to spend 2-3 days a week working as a doctor, with the rest of the week doing YouTube and business stuff.

Then I remembered what Bill Burnett and Dave Evans write about in Designing Your Life, and Anne-Laure in Tiny Experiments.

They talk about running experiments.

We don't really know what we want until we test it out with the smallest possible experiment.

So before committing to medical training, I decided to test part-time work.

I took extra shifts at the hospital to model what working three days a week in medicine would actually look like.

And I quickly realised it wasn’t actually that fun.

Every 20 minutes, I'd start thinking.

I'd rather be at WeWork making YouTube videos.
I could actually be working on the business.
Or playing table tennis with my team.

When I was working on YouTube with the gang, I felt excited.

But the evening before every shift, I dreaded going in.

Really didn't look forward to spending hours on the phone trying to get hold of the neurosurgical registrar to refer a patient 😅

By running this experiment for just a few weeks, I saved myself potentially years of chasing a path I ultimately wouldn't have enjoyed.

So if you want to try something new in 2026, do this.

Find the minimum viable experiment that could test your hypothesis.

Don't apply to med school.
Spend 6+ years in training.
And then learn you don't like it.

Do some work experience.
Shadow a doctor for a weekend.
Sit in a hospital cafe and ask doctors about their experience.

These tiny experiments will give you answers way quicker and give you a lot more data points than committing years upfront.

If you want to get the journaling prompts I use to figure out what I want in life and make better decisions, get them here → https://lnkd.in/gQQ8MSfC

Stanford Adjunct Professor, Co-Author of Designing Your Life and How to Live a Meaningful Life, Co-Founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab

Co-Author: How to Live a Meaningful Life [Simon Element]

Neuroscientist at King's College London and founder of Ness Labs | Author of "Tiny Experiments"

I used to need permission to take a holiday.

Fill out a form. Submit it weeks in advance. Hope it wasn't a no.

My time off wasn't really mine. It belonged to a system.

Fast forward a few years. Before the end of the year when I sat down to plan 2026, I realised something had completely changed.

I didn't ask anyone. I just opened a blank calendar and asked myself three questions:

↳ When do I want to travel with my wife?
↳ When do I need to properly switch off and recharge?
↳ What family stuff do I refuse to miss?

I blocked all of that first. Then I figured out where work could fit around it.

This isn't a flex. It's just the thing I didn't realise was possible when I was stuck in my old job.

Back then, I thought "time freedom" meant retiring early or winning the lottery. I didn't realise you could build something small on the side that eventually gives you control over your own calendar.

It doesn't happen overnight. It took me years. But the shift from "requesting time off" to "deciding when I work" changed everything about how I experience life.

If you're stuck in a job where your time isn't yours, I get it. I was there. But it doesn't have to stay that way forever.

Start small. Build something on the side. And one day, you might find yourself planning your year the other way around.

It’s easier than you think to build a business that gives you this freedom, I teach it in Lifestyle Business Academy. Link in comments.

Hot Take: I don’t think you should ‘just be yourself’ 👀

One of the worst pieces of advice I see given out online is that you should just "be yourself” but what does that even mean?

The person that you think you are is shaped by random events that happened from birth and during your upbringing. Most people haven’t actively chosen who they want to be.

For example, if I had truly embraced "being myself" early on, I wouldn’t be creating content on social media. I’d still be a shy, introverted person worried about other people’s opinions.

I’m so glad I got over that and started making YouTube videos back in 2017 🎬

The best piece of advice when it comes to this topic is to really step out of your comfort zone. It will 100% feel weird, and you may have imposter syndrome when you do the thing that’s outside your comfort zone, but it means you’re choosing to develop a skill you want to authentically develop.

Don’t limit yourself to the notion of simply being yourself. Instead, choose the person you want to become.

Do you agree? 🤔

In 2022, I interviewed Alex Hormozi.

We were talking about how most people overthink getting started…

He said, "Trying to think 100 steps into the future when you have no context is irrelevant, because chaos is going to break your plan anyway."

And I thought back to my own journey. When I was working, I spent ages trying to figure out the "perfect" business idea.

I'd lie awake at night making elaborate 5-year plans, convinced I needed to have everything mapped out before I could even start.

Rather than looking for some perfect, final destination, it's way more useful to choose starting goals that build context and skills.

"Once you start taking steps," he said, "the next step becomes illuminated."

And I completely agree.

I personally use something called the GPS method to choose the right goals.

(And I’ve converted it into a custom GPT for you to use - linked below)

Here’s the framework:

G – Goal 🎯
↳ What specifically do you want? (with numbers when possible)
↳ Why do you actually care? (intrinsic motivation beats external pressure)
↳ What boundaries won't you cross? (like "I won't sacrifice family time")

P – Plan 📝
↳ What are the 3-5 major moves that'll get you there?
↳ Is this realistic? (would it work if executed perfectly?)
↳ Will you actually follow this plan? (be honest based on your track record)

S – System ⚙️
↳ How will you track progress? (what gets measured gets managed)
↳ How will you remind yourself? (calendar blocks, notifications, visual cues)
↳ Who will hold you accountable? (buddy, coach, community)

The thing is, your brain can't execute "become successful."

But it can execute "make 1 post today."

The GPS method gives just enough structure so your next steps actually lead somewhere meaningful – without needing to have the whole journey figured out.

I've turned this into a custom GPT that walks you through each step. It helps you choose a goal, turn it into a 90-day plan, and design a tiny system to follow through. 

Here's the link: https://lnkd.in/gMGvg35W

Founder Acquisition.com, Co-Founder Skool.com. Get your free scaling roadmap👇

Here's something counterintuitive about confidence:

You don't need confidence to start. You build confidence by starting.

Psychologist Albert Bandura called this "mastery experiences."

The idea is simple: our self-belief grows strongest through small wins, not positive thinking.

Here's how it works:

1️⃣ Try something (even if you doubt yourself)
2️⃣ Get a small win
3️⃣ Your belief increases slightly
4️⃣ You try something harder
🔂 Repeat

This is why the most successful entrepreneurs aren't the ones who were born confident.

They're the ones who stacked enough small wins to become confident.

When I started my first business, I wasn't confident I could build a company. I just believed I could land one customer.

Then another. Then another.

Several years in, after a lot of trial and error, the confidence started showing up.

Not before the work. Because of it.

If you're waiting to feel ready before you start, you've got it backwards.

Start small. Stack wins. Let the belief catch up.

🔄 Repost this to help others, and follow me for more.

A few years ago, I was at a writers' retreat with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, and he gifted me a pen. It quickly became my favourite.

I loved the vibe of the pen. The weight, the feel, the way it just worked. And I saw it was designed in collaboration with Baronfig.

And I was using it a lot, actually all the time. There was just one problem with it, I found myself wishing it was white (I prefer the light mode aesthetic.)

So James kindly introduced me to Baronfig and now we’ve done a collab.

Baronfig is one of my favourite stationery brands. I've tested hundreds of pens over the years and their stuff is just brilliant. It's the same reason I'd want to do a Peak Design collab if I ever did bags – when you find a brand whose stuff you genuinely use and love, it just makes sense.

I've been using it for the past month and there’s just something special about having a pen that just feels right.

If you're weird like me and into fancy stationery, you might like it.

Here’s the link to check it out: https://lnkd.in/g7FNGacY

I spent $60,000 to attend an entrepreneur's mastermind.

This was one of my major takeaways:

Taki Moore's "Experiment Cycle."

He runs the Boardroom Mastermind aimed at online coaching businesses doing $1m/y+ in revenue.

He calls it the "Experiment Cycle." Six steps that sound almost too simple:

1️⃣ Goal
↳ What does success look like?

2️⃣ Problem
↳ What's blocking you right now?

3️⃣ Hypothesis
↳ What do you think might fix it?

4️⃣ Experiment
↳ Run a small test. Fast.

5️⃣ Review
↳ Did it work? What happened?

6️⃣ Adjust
↳ Keep, tweak, or kill it. Then repeat.

Might sound obvious, but most business problems don't actually need complex solutions, they just need faster feedback loops. We overcomplicate things because it feels like we're making progress, when really we'd be better off just running quick experiments and seeing what happens.

We're actually using this right now with our YouTube videos.

The goal is more views, but views aren't meeting our expectations, so our hypothesis is that the videos aren't valuable enough and more prep time might fix that. The experiment is testing 3 hours vs 5 hours vs 10 hours of prep time, then we review after 30 days and adjust based on what the data tells us.

We're mid-experiment so no results to share yet, but honestly I'd rather be testing than guessing.

Have you run a business / life experiment before? What did you find out?

Coach Marketing Expert | Coach Lead Generation at Million Dollar Coach

There are 2 types of employees:

Those who know they're entrepreneurs, and those who don't realise it yet.

Think about it, your employer is just your first client.

They pay you a fixed monthly rate in exchange for your time and skills. Thats the same thing you could provide to someone else.

Starting a business doesn’t mean quitting your job, taking a huge risk, and figuring out how to find customers from scratch.

When you start making money on the side, you're not going from zero clients to one. You're going from one client to two.

The skills you use at work are skills someone else would pay for.

The problems you solve for your employer are problems other people have too.

You've already proven you can deliver value.

You're just doing it exclusively for one customer right now.

And the best part is, you don't need to quit anything to test this. You can start small, with a few hours a week and then see if anyone bites.

I know people who've done this with:

↳ Consulting in their existing field
↳ Coaching based on skills they already have
↳ Creating content about what they know

None of them had a business plan, none of them quit their jobs first. They just found a second client.

The shift from "employee" to "business owner" sounds terrifying. But the shift from "one client" to "two clients" feels a lot more manageable.

2026 is the year you finally start a lifestyle business.

And there are broadly 3 skills you need.

When I was working as a doctor in the UK, I often asked my seniors what they'd do if they won the lottery.

Most of them said that they would quit immediately.

A few said they'd go part-time.

When I asked what was stopping them, it was always about money.

That's the day I realised I needed financial options that would make medicine a choice rather than a necessity.

Over the years I've realised that making money is simply an exchange of value.

When someone pays you, they're saying "The value you provided is worth more to me than this money."

And to consistently create that value, you need three skills working together.

1️⃣ Productivity Skills

Your ability to invest time, energy, and focus into value creation. Without this, the other skills can't really be applied effectively.

2️⃣ Craft Skills

Your ability to actually help people achieve their desired outcomes. The more value you create, the more money you can make.

3️⃣ Business Skills

Your ability to find, attract, and serve customers. This includes product creation, marketing, and sales.

Unfortunately, the education system doesn't really teach us anything about this.

I learned this through various attempts of making my own business.

If you're interested in building a lifestyle business and becoming financially free, get my free workshop on the practical path to get there 👉 https://lnkd.in/guqJfTf8

89,256 people signed up for our Spark Summit this year.

We set what we thought was an ambitious target of 75,000 registrations and hoped for the best. We hit 89,256.

Spark Summit is our 2 day free online event that happens at the start of each year. It's designed to help people set themselves up for success with practical workshops on goal-setting, productivity, and building sustainable systems.

Think of it as a reset button for your year, but with actual tools and frameworks rather than just motivational vibes.

I want to say a massive thank you to our speakers:

• Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD guided everyone through choosing tiny experiments to run this year.
• Nir Eyal shared insights from his new book "Beyond Belief" on how to stop limiting yourself and achieve extraordinary results.
• Tj Power introduced his DOSE framework for balancing our brain chemistry in the new year.
• And Izzy Sealey ran a vision boarding workshop that had the chat absolutely buzzing throughout.

Over those two days, I watched thousands of people show up live, actually do the exercises, and properly engage with the content in real-time. This isn’t one of those events where you just sit back and passively consume information whilst scrolling your phone.

People were building vision boards, working through their goals, setting quarterly quests, and designing systems they could actually stick to beyond the first week of January.

Huge thank you to everyone who showed up live, took it seriously, and made it feel like a proper collective “right, let’s sort our lives out” moment.

And to my team who handled everything behind the scenes, from the email automations to the tech setup to coordinating with speakers across multiple time zones, you made this look effortless when I know it was anything but. I'm incredibly grateful.

Here's to making 2026 the year we all actually follow through.

If you missed Spark Summit this year, link in the comments for the recordings 👇

Get my new book BEYOND BELIEF & unlock exclusive gifts 📚 | Former Stanford lecturer helping you make sense of the science | Bestselling author of Hooked & Indistractable (​>1M sold)

Neuroscientist at DOSE® Lab and Sunday Times Bestselling Author | 950k+ followers on Insta @tjpower

i did this one exercise back in 2019.

it made me realise being a doctor wasn't what i actually wanted.

if you're struggling to figure out what to do with your life, then you might like to try out this really cool experiment called the Odyssey Plan.

now, this is a strategy talked about in the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans and essentially, it's where you ask yourself three questions:

1. what does my life look like five years from now if i continue on my current path?

2. what does my life look like five years from now if i take a completely different path?

3. what does my life look like five years from now if i take a completely different path where i don't care about making money and i'm not worried about what other people will think?

often we think that thing that we did the degree in, or that thing that we decided aged 14 we wanted to go into, that's the thing we have to continue doing. but doing something like the Odyssey Plan forces us to think a little bit differently about how we could potentially spend our time.

and we often realise once you do the exercise that "oh, i actually have way more paths available to me than the path that i originally thought."

and actually, for me, doing the Odyssey Plan for the first time back in 2019 was what made me realise that being a doctor was not really the thing that i wanted to do full time.

so if you try that, do drop a comment down below or feel free to dm me, and i'd love to hear how you get on.

INCLUS

Founder of Inclus an Inclusive Design Consultancy that specialises in utilising collaborative Inclusive Design to create accessible and inclusively designed products to help organisations to improve their outreach to consumers from social minority groups.

The G Team

I am the Head of Public Speaking at the G Team.
My role consists of me communicating with clients mainly within the education sector to help devise and deliver personal development workshops to help young people achieve their dreams.

Head of Public Speaking

Fiverr

Helping others to convert their ideas into real life product solutions:
https://www.fiverr.com/s2/14edde5d05

Freelance Product Designer

Unilever

6 month Product Design internship at Unilever's Deoderant factory in Leeds focussing on projects around Inclusive Design and disruptive innovation.

Product Design Intern

House Hack

Leading teams within House Hacks monthly innovation challenge to help develop solutions for real businesses which are innovative and from a student perspective.

Team Leader

I was an intern at House Hack which involved me:
- Assisting on sales calls and partnership calls
- Giving advice from a user experience point of view
- Creating social media posts
- Creating resources based upon exploring problem solving
- Co hosting the monthly Innovation Challenge with Joanna Dlugoszweska

Intern/Head of resources

Enactus Loughborough

President/team leader of Enactus Loughborough between the academic year of 2020 and 2021

President of Enactus Loughborough

Project leader of PrepMate for Enactus Loughborough. PrepMate is a project which is focussing upon improving the lives of those with an upper limb difference or dexterity impairment through a purposefully designed chopping board. Our aim is to give people with an upper limb difference or dexterity impairment more confidence in the kitchen 😊

Project Lead of PrepMate

Member within Prepmate - a social enterpise helping to improve those with a upper limb difference to have more confidence within the kitchen. This is done through a society called Enactus which I am part of at Loughborough University.

Project Member

Founder at INCLUS | Helping Organizations Achieve Growth Through Great Inclusive Product Design

We help consumer brands unlock the power of inclusive design to reach diverse audiences, create meaningful impact, and stay ahead of the competition.

If you’re anything like the brands we work with, you’re committed to innovation and delivering accessible products.

But there’s a challenge: your products may not be reaching everyone they could.

You want to design solutions that resonate with all audiences, opening up untapped opportunities and ensuring no one is left behind.

By embracing inclusive design, you can:

- Expand your customer base
- Build brand loyalty with diverse audiences
- Future-proof your product portfolio
- Enhance your reputation as an industry leader
- Make a lasting social impact

We help our clients do just that through our Inclusive Solutions Service by:

1️⃣ Assessing the accessibility and inclusivity of their products designs.
2️⃣ Testing with real, diverse users from our community (4000+ members) to uncover hidden barriers.
3️⃣ Creating innovative, inclusive solutions that work for as many people as possible.

And we’ve got the results to back it up:

🚀 Designed solutions that are estimated to reach over 280,000 consumers in the past year 
🚀 Helped brands break into previously untapped markets
🚀 Enabled measurable improvements in user experience and brand perception

Don't just take it from me as well:

"Since working with Inclus, there is a wider understanding of inclusive design practices and the increasing need for this. Working with Rob is an opportunity you will not regret" - Ladi, Consultant at Alchemmy.

Inclusive design isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s the smart thing to do.

Ready to create products that truly make a difference?

Shoot me a DM saying "Inclusive Design" to start the conversation or send us an email at info@inclusdesign.com

Want to just find out more? 

Follow me for insights on inclusive design and how it can transform your brand and check out our website www.inclusdesign.com

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✏Robert McKinna FRSA

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