№ 01
“The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I've mentioned this more times than I can remember so I won't bang on about it. In brief, this book changed my life.” source
Author and YouTuber
Ali Abdaal
Ali Abdaal is a former Cambridge-trained doctor turned productivity YouTuber with more than 5 million subscribers. He is the author of Feel-Good Productivity, host of the Deep Dive podcast, and writes the weekly Sunday Snippets newsletter to hundreds of thousands of readers.
12
Recommendations
2025
Most recent list
Self-Help
Most-recommended
On the record
All Ali Abdaal book recommendations.
№ 02
“The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd. No joke, I kept 10 copies of this book last year and gifted it to all my friends. If you're struggling to figure out what's next in your career, not sure if you should follow the default path, Paul has some brilliant advice for you.” source
№ 03
“I read Show Your Work five years ago and it finally got me to start sharing stuff online. I now have 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube and have quit my job as a doctor to do it full-time. Every creator I know owes something to this book.” source
№ 04
“Atomic Habits by James Clear. 8 out of 10. Really good for building habits. The identity-based framing is what stuck with me. Every action is a vote for the type of person you want to become.” source
№ 05
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. 10 out of 10. Really, really good. Incredible.” source
№ 06
“The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. 9 out of 10. Not massively, practically useful for most people, but very interesting. Housel makes the case that doing well with money has almost nothing to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave.” source
№ 07
“Deep Work by Cal Newport. 8 out of 10. Very useful for building focus habits. The core idea, that the ability to do concentrated cognitive work is becoming both more valuable and more rare, has held up better than almost anything else in the productivity canon.” source
№ 08
“The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. 10 out of 10 if you're on the spiritual journey. 0 out of 10 if you have no idea what I'm talking about.” source
№ 09
“This is one of the most inspiring books I've ever read. Matthew Dicks is an incredible writer and storyteller, and this book has made me feel like I can do anything I set my heart to. His strategies are simple, profound, and eminently doable, and they deliver the results they promise.” source
№ 10
“Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain framework is genuinely one of the reasons my business exists. Taking his course in 2019 was the most money I'd ever spent on online education, and the return has been ludicrous. The book distills the whole system.” source
№ 11
“So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport changed how I think about career growth. It's not about passion, it's about skill. Following your passion is terrible advice. Building rare and valuable skills is what actually gives you the leverage to design the life you want.” source
№ 12
“The average human lifespan is around 4,000 weeks. It sounds scary but it's also incredibly empowering. Oliver Burkeman's argument is that facing our finitude, and how little control we have, is actually the key to a truly fulfilling and meaningfully productive life.” source
Readers with overlapping taste
