How to Organise your Workflow to Maximise Productivity
Ali Abdaal · Doctor + YouTuber
A solid systems-level sequel that trades the previous class's theory for genuinely usable calendar, to-do list, and review routines you can copy today.
This is the second installment in Ali Abdaal's productivity series, and it shows: the abstract "productivity equation" from the first class is treated as settled, and the energy here goes into the pilot, plane, engineer model instead. The pilot sets direction, the plane does the work, and the engineer optimizes the system. It is a tidy metaphor, and the course commits to it fully, organizing all twenty lessons under one of the three headings rather than letting them float as a generic list of tips.
Structure and the strongest material
The Pilot section is the most immediately practical stretch of the course. It walks through calendar use with real specificity: block time even for social plans, treat gaps as decision points rather than free time, and use the presence of a scheduled task to notice when a distraction is actually a distraction. The to-do list lesson introduces the "might-do list" idea, which reframes a task manager as a menu instead of an obligation, then splits that menu into today, this week, and everything else. Layered on top is David Allen's six horizons of focus, borrowed directly from Getting Things Done, which gives structure to why a task list needs separate levels for ground-level actions, multi-step projects, ongoing areas of responsibility, and longer-term goals.
The Plane section, which the course claims should occupy 80 to 85 percent of a person's time, covers motivation, distraction, and the Pomodoro Technique. The motivation material is more useful than the average "just get inspired" content because it separates two real levers: making the action itself more pleasurable (music while studying, tracking gym numbers as a personal game) and making inaction more painful (artificial deadlines, public commitment). The distraction management lesson leans on friction rather than willpower: move social apps to a second home screen, delete browser bookmarks to distracting sites, switch a phone to grayscale. These are small, unglamorous, testable changes, which is exactly what a video like this should offer.
Where it thins out
The Engineer section is weaker. Digital fluency gets covered mostly by pointing to an external free resource rather than teaching the material inside the course itself, and the review cadence (daily, weekly, monthly, annual) is useful in concept but repeats structure more than it adds new technique after the weekly review is introduced. The annual review lesson spends real time walking through someone else's template rather than building out an original one, which makes that portion feel like a tour of other people's systems more than direct instruction.
Overall assessment
The course does what a second installment should: it moves from principles to mechanics. Anyone who found the first class too abstract will likely get more direct value here, since almost every lesson ends in a specific action, whether that is downloading a calendar app or blocking out two weeks for a monthly review. The tradeoff is that several lessons openly tell viewers who already use a calendar or task manager to skip ahead, which caps how much a working professional with existing systems will get out of the earlier lessons. The back half, particularly the engineer material, is thinner than the front half and occasionally substitutes signposting to outside resources for actual teaching. Taken as a whole, it is a competent, well-organized systems course rather than a transformative one, best suited to viewers ready to build a first real productivity system rather than those refining an already-functioning one.
The standout
The 'might-do list' reframe, which removes the guilt of adding tasks and turns the task manager into a genuine daily-selection tool rather than a growing debt.
What you will learn
- Time-block a calendar using the pilot/plane/engineer framework so every hour has a default task assigned to it
- Run a 'might-do list' instead of a rigid to-do list, split into today, this week, and someday buckets
- Apply David Allen's six horizons of focus to separate ground-level tasks from projects, areas, and goals
- Use the Pomodoro Technique and deliberate friction (removing bookmarks, grayscale mode, phone in another room) to cut distraction
- Run weekly, monthly, and annual reviews with a specific reflect-review-process structure
- Boost digital fluency through touch typing, launcher apps like Alfred, and Inbox Zero habits
Best for: Knowledge workers and students who already have some productivity habits and want a concrete operating system to organize scheduling, tasks, and reviews rather than more motivational theory.
Skip it if: Total beginners who have never used a calendar or to-do list app, since several lessons assume familiarity and explicitly say to skip ahead if the basics are already known.