Book Byte #4 "Feel Good Productivity" by Ali Abdaal
Every Productivity Tip a 5 Million+ Sub Youtuber has used in One Book
Buy the Book here: https://amzn.to/41QZgSn
“Ali reveals how the science of feel-good productivity can transform your life. He introduces the three hidden "energizers" that underpin enjoyable productivity, the three "blockers" we must overcome to beat procrastination, and the three "sustainers" that prevent burnout and help us achieve lasting fulfillment. He recounts the inspiring stories of founders, Olympians, and Nobel-winning scientists who embody the principles of Feel-Good Productivity. And he introduces the simple, actionable changes that you can use to achieve more and live better, starting today.”
📣 Curious Quotes from the Author:
“If the treatment isn’t working, question the diagnosis.”
“an adventurous life holds the key to unlocking positive emotions. So, the first way to harness the potential of play is to integrate adventure into our lives.”
“Dopamine is one of our feel-good hormones, and it also activates the part of the brain responsible for learning and forming memories.”
“Being curious about everything not only makes you more creative. It enriches your life.”
📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea:
Motivation to be productive is directly tied to how you feel about a task. The author goes on to give many tips and tricks to help trick yourself into becoming motivated, but ultimately he lets us know that the only true way to stay motivated to a task is to find a way feel good while doing it.
He goes on to say we need an immense amount of motivation to do tasks we inherently don’t want to do, but the key to is to always stay curious about life and explore that curiosity as your doing the task you hate. He talks about the famous movie Mary Poppins, where the children don’t want to clean their room: “In every job that must be done there is an Element of fun, you find the fun and SNAP, the job’s a Game.”
Making work fun is all about finding where your energy comes from and do things in alignment with where that energy comes actually originates. For example “If your task is to code a website, you might comment hidden messages and jokes that might someday be appreciated by a future developer or maybe you’ll make it a game with who can sell the most products by the end of the quarter among your peers for a prize. As long as you can feel good while working, your productivity and efficiency will skyrocket in comparison to just going through the motion while you hate your life.
The Author tells us that the 3 Key Areas to Achieving Feel Good Productivity are:
Energize
Autonomy - Gain energy by giving yourself permission to do what you need to do
Competence - Learn and gain confidence to help your fear index
Relatedness - Relate what you have to do to other things you want to do.
Unblock
Emotional Procrastination - Soul Search within yourself to unblock the roadblocks holding you back from being productive
Rational Procrastination - Use logic to determine your best course of action.
Habitual Procrastination - Realize if you are procrastinating because you’re used to procrastination in your daily work. Chances are if you spend 30 minutes doom scrolling, you’ll spend another 3 hours with it without blinking.
Sustain
Physical Health - Get better at making yourself physically healthy, Physical Health is very important towards being productive, as it boosts morale
Mental Health - Find and resolve issues that might cause burnout and misalignment of your core values
Social Health - Find an Accountability buddy, share time and feelings with friends to better your social health, you’ll be extremely more productive
The last bit of advice the Author has when is when it comes to productivity, act like a Scientist. Experiment with new methods and tools to maximize your potential to get things done. Try a range of the most common methods to the most unusual. Mimic some of the most successful methods of your favorite youtubers, most likely if you relate with them, you’ll be able to gain success by following what they do.
🤝 Collaborate with others with this Social Media Prompt:
What is one thing you want to achieve this year? Make sure it’s something that’s a bit outside of your current abilities as to stretch you, but not so much you become demotivated because of the challenge.
Take that goal and ask yourself, what are little things I can do to make achieving that goal more fun and achievable? Share those personal things on your timeline, it’ll act as a lightning rod and help others achieve their goals as they rethink their approach to getting the hard things done, consistently.