Real Economist Reacts to 2024's Biggest Productivity Book

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?

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

super good video. same feeling after reading this book.

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

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.

Common econ professor W

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

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.

‘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!

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

Great review. Thank you.

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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

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 .

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.

Great review, thank you.

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.

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.

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.

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 😂

I think it would be better if you'd try (and fail obviously) to write your own book instead :) What a jealousy. No wonder you have this few subscribers.

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

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...

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.

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 😂

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.