The Double Life of Productivity’s Most Famous Doctor
YouTuber Ali Abdaal shares how he makes the productivity videos that have netted him 1M subscribers
When I think about being a doctor, I think about years of endless study, and all the grueling training it takes to get into the field. I picture living life in a labcoat, running through hospital corridors from ER to lab to surgery and back again — from patient to patient, diagnosis to diagnosis.
I imagine a life where maximum multi-tasking is business as usual, and life and death decisions are all in a day’s work.
I have nothing but awe for the intense, all-consuming work doctors do. It’s not just a job. It’s a profession. A vocation. A calling.
Now imagine doing all of that – while secretly living a double life:
Dr. Ali Abdaal has been practicing medicine – while at the same time building a wildly successful productivity YouTube channel, with well over a million subscribers.
He’s a healer by day — but by night, he’s a celebrity guru for anyone looking to perfect their productivity, tech, and study habits.
Either one of those achievements would be a mind-boggling challenge for anyone to pull off. But Ali Abdaal isn’t your average doctor — nor is he your average productivity YouTuber.
In fact, Ali is someone who says, “I worship at the altar of productivity” — and therein lies the secret to his success: he combines his lifelong fascination with productivity and workflows with a medical scientist’s patience for clinical trials and close observation.
