Ali Abdaal is one of my favorite and most-watched productivity creators on YouTube 🎥. So when he finally decided to write his book Feel Good Productivity, I immediately pre-ordered it 💸. In the book, Abdaal focuses on productivity from a very specific lens:
Getting things done should be enjoyable.
The idea is easy to agree with, and the rest of the book followed this theme to a tee and really resonated with me 🔑.
Here are some of my takeaways:
- Good productivity wants good circumstances. While not every task we have to get done in a day is going to be the most fun or enjoyable, sometimes changing our circumstances can enhance our productivity 🔄. Instead of studying for a med school exam at our desk, maybe we study while walking through a park 🌳. Instead of just cleaning the house, maybe we turn it into a race 🏎️. Even something as mundane as doing taxes can become a game with the right mindset! Abdaal finds way to be more productive and enjoy the process by asking a simple question: What would this look like if it were fun?
- Collaboration = Energy. Ali Abdaal describes 3 P’s to make work more enjoyable and effective: Power, Play, and People. The last one, people, merits additional recognition 🔎. Working with others not only enables feelings of joy to flow, but it can also make us work harder. I can recall that while studying for exams during medical school 🏫, the days when I did group study were much more fun than solo study 👯, and I usually worked even harder because I wanted my friends to enjoy it and learn more also 💜.
- The key to preventing procrastination is understanding it. Sometimes even when we really want to be productive, we can’t help but procrastinate 😖. Rather than getting frustrated by this, we should instead be asking things like why I feel like I need to procrastinate, or what am I hoping to accomplish by procrastinating 🤔. These simple questions could help us to uncover roadblocks in our productivity, like uncertainty about where to start or a fear of failure ⚠️.
- Small productivity is still productivity. There’s a famous Chinese proverb that says’ “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” 🛣️. This rings true in the realm of productivity as well, and Abdaal offers that whether a project is big or small, sometimes taking an initial “action step”, no matter how small, can reduce friction and help get the ball rolling 🎢. I don’t know about you, but whenever I have a big task in front of me and I’m able to push off from starting line, that’s a micro-win 🏆.
- It’s okay for hobbies to just be hobbies. Anyone who has done a deep dive into productivity hacks could probably learn from this one. I have so many hobbies like playing chess ♟️ and doing yoga 🧘🏽♂️ that at some point or another, I’ve tried to regiment in an attempt to create “meaningful” progress 🤦🏽♂️. But sometimes hobbies are just for the sake of having fun, rather than getting better. It’s always nice to have a reminder like this, and I should probably print it out and stick it on my wall.
When it comes to getting stuff done, I love the approach Ali Abdaal takes in his book Feel Good Productivity. Checking off tasks should feel good and if it doesn’t, ask the right questions and find creative ways to make it feel good ✅.
Now maybe I should go do some yoga…