Ali Abdaal

So basically nobody has my number. Well, you have my number. But basically nobody has my number. They have my wife's number, which is a little bit weird now that I say it out loud. But she works with me and she screens a lot of this stuff and helps keep it private. Honestly, I dedicate about 40 minutes per day to communicating just with show fans.

So that's email, Instagram, DMs, LinkedIn messaging. And I just do that myself. And then when that timer is up, I am done. And it depends. If I'm slow, I'll often just use this counter app on my phone that's like a ticker. And I'll go, all right, I'm going to do 20 LinkedIn messages each day. And once I hit 20, I don't care if there's 100 more in there. I'm doing 20 a day.

So that's email, Instagram, DMs, LinkedIn messaging. And I just do that myself. And then when that timer is up, I am done. And it depends. If I'm slow, I'll often just use this counter app on my phone that's like a ticker. And I'll go, all right, I'm going to do 20 LinkedIn messages each day. And once I hit 20, I don't care if there's 100 more in there. I'm doing 20 a day.

So that's email, Instagram, DMs, LinkedIn messaging. And I just do that myself. And then when that timer is up, I am done. And it depends. If I'm slow, I'll often just use this counter app on my phone that's like a ticker. And I'll go, all right, I'm going to do 20 LinkedIn messages each day. And once I hit 20, I don't care if there's 100 more in there. I'm doing 20 a day.

And I do 30 fan mail messages. And I take those down. And there's 200 in there that are for later. I'm a month and a half behind on fan mail. Oh, well, most people ignore their fan mail anyway, so people can wait a month. That's just how it works. But I'm getting back to them in a systemized way.

And I do 30 fan mail messages. And I take those down. And there's 200 in there that are for later. I'm a month and a half behind on fan mail. Oh, well, most people ignore their fan mail anyway, so people can wait a month. That's just how it works. But I'm getting back to them in a systemized way.

And I do 30 fan mail messages. And I take those down. And there's 200 in there that are for later. I'm a month and a half behind on fan mail. Oh, well, most people ignore their fan mail anyway, so people can wait a month. That's just how it works. But I'm getting back to them in a systemized way.

Sometimes if I'm just like bored to tears in an airplane lounge and the book I'm reading is not doing it for me, I'll be like, you know, I got to burn off some nervous energy and I'll just plow through like 80 fan mail messages and it feels good and it gets done. I realize I'm never going to chip this Mount Everest down to zero because it's always refilling.

Sometimes if I'm just like bored to tears in an airplane lounge and the book I'm reading is not doing it for me, I'll be like, you know, I got to burn off some nervous energy and I'll just plow through like 80 fan mail messages and it feels good and it gets done. I realize I'm never going to chip this Mount Everest down to zero because it's always refilling.

Sometimes if I'm just like bored to tears in an airplane lounge and the book I'm reading is not doing it for me, I'll be like, you know, I got to burn off some nervous energy and I'll just plow through like 80 fan mail messages and it feels good and it gets done. I realize I'm never going to chip this Mount Everest down to zero because it's always refilling.

Like you're just bailing buckets of water out, but it's not hopeless either because it's enjoyable. So if you give yourself a finite goal, then it's fine because you're getting back to people in a systematic way. It's not just building up and building anxiety. I don't know about you. Did you get anxiety? You're like, I've got 75 unreads now. This is making me feel awful.

Like you're just bailing buckets of water out, but it's not hopeless either because it's enjoyable. So if you give yourself a finite goal, then it's fine because you're getting back to people in a systematic way. It's not just building up and building anxiety. I don't know about you. Did you get anxiety? You're like, I've got 75 unreads now. This is making me feel awful.

Like you're just bailing buckets of water out, but it's not hopeless either because it's enjoyable. So if you give yourself a finite goal, then it's fine because you're getting back to people in a systematic way. It's not just building up and building anxiety. I don't know about you. Did you get anxiety? You're like, I've got 75 unreads now. This is making me feel awful.

I just go, it doesn't matter how many are in there, a thousand or a hundred or 10. They get chipped away this much every single day.

I just go, it doesn't matter how many are in there, a thousand or a hundred or 10. They get chipped away this much every single day.

I just go, it doesn't matter how many are in there, a thousand or a hundred or 10. They get chipped away this much every single day.

Yeah, I'm not always on my phone, no. But like most people in our line of work probably do. I silence my phone. And then at the end of the day, when my kids are coming, my wife goes, I'm going to pick up the kids from school. And that's like 5.30 or something like that.

Yeah, I'm not always on my phone, no. But like most people in our line of work probably do. I silence my phone. And then at the end of the day, when my kids are coming, my wife goes, I'm going to pick up the kids from school. And that's like 5.30 or something like that.

Yeah, I'm not always on my phone, no. But like most people in our line of work probably do. I silence my phone. And then at the end of the day, when my kids are coming, my wife goes, I'm going to pick up the kids from school. And that's like 5.30 or something like that.

I go, okay, I wrap up whatever I'm doing on the computer and I go to my phone and unleash the beast, unleash the torrent of incoming texts and stuff that was silenced all day. And I just reply to everyone. It doesn't take that long. I don't have that many people that like me, Ali. Fair play.