Feel Good Productivity

If you too want to change you life learn about 3 key lessons from the book :

Booster shots

Don’t worry if all this talk of feel-good work sounds a little too woo-woo. There is strong biological evidence to back its existence.

As I said in the beginning, low energy is the main thing that stops people from being productive, whether they are in the feel-good or work culture.

Many times, like many other people, you try to make up for your lack of energy by using sugar, coffee, and other outside stimulants to get through the day. They can help for a little while, but as you know, they won’t last forever.

There is, however, a better and more long-lasting option that you can use at any time: your hormones. Endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin are chemicals that give your body and mind the energy to get more done. That’s not all; feeling good is what lets them go.

Happily, there are three easy things you can do to start moving these feel-good chemicals. You can think of these three things as “energizers”: play, power, and people.

Play points to what you’d expect: making your days more fun and exciting. Life is stressful by nature, but you don’t have to be dead serious all the time. To avoid this, you can live your life with sincerity, caring deeply while still making time for fun and laughter. Do not forget that your life is the ultimate path. You shouldn’t just soberly suffer through it; you should accept, enjoy, and explore it.

Power is Abdaal’s second energizer, but it’s not the same kind of power you might think of first. This kind of power is not power over other people, but power over yourself. It’s the feeling of being in charge of your own life.

You can still gain personal strength even if things around you seem to be working against you. In your day job, you might not be able to pick what you work on, but you can always pick how you work on it. With a sense of fun, maybe.

People, the third and final energizer, makes a reference to something you already know: the people you spend the most time with affect both your mood and your work.

Obviously, this means you should hang out with more dancers than vampires, or people who make you feel good instead of people who drain you. If you don’t already have people like that around you, you can start by showing them how to work together instead of against each other.

You should now see a stronger connection between your energy, mood, and productivity. You may also have some ideas for how to add more play, power, and people to your daily life. But here are some of Abdaal’s small attempts to add to the mix.

“How can I make this fun?” is a good question to ask yourself when you have and unpleasant job to do. When you’re about to do something scary or difficult, ask yourself, “What would this look like if I was the best at it in the world?” Also, if you feel disconnected or alone, think about who you could ask for help with that particular problem. People can get just as much out of asking for help or advice as you can get from it.

It might not be that easy, even though you now have the energy to do it. You’ll find out what might be stopping this energy from freely manifesting in the next part.

Remove blockages

Putting things off. We won’t ask for a raise of hands because everyone goes through it. You may have even gone through it today. So, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the second thing that keeps people from being productive and reaching their full potential is putting things off.

Usually, there are two “solutions” to beating this tough enemy: discipline (Abdaal’s personal favorite) and inspiration. While the discipline method tells you to just “grin and bear it” no matter what, the motivation method tells you to do amazing mental tricks to find passion in the most unlikely places.

These strategies may have worked for you at some point, but it’s rare that you’ve found them to be 100% effective. Abdaal found a third way after giving up his “discipline at all costs” approach: unblocking.

Instead of discipline or drive, the unblocking method tells you to figure out why you keep putting things off and then deal with the main issue directly. One of three things is usually at the root of the problem: misunderstanding, fear, or inertia. You can easily fight each of these things, though: doubt with clarity, fear with courage, and inertia with action. Let’s look more closely at these three sets.

It might seem obvious that confusion leads to putting things off, but it’s rare to realize that what’s really holding you back is a lack of clarity rather than, say, a lack of drive. Asking yourself the “why,” “what,” “how,” “when,” and “where” of the project or job at hand can save you hours of work in the long run.

When you’re putting things off because you’re afraid, it might not be as obvious. In the end, most people don’t like to say when they’re scared or nervous. What you need to do may be as simple as naming your mental experience. This clears up your thoughts, stops you from dwelling on them too much, and gives you your first hint that victory might be possible.

It’s time for inertia. The saying “an object at rest stays at rest” is true in both basic physics and personal efficiency. It’s always hardest to take the first step toward something hard but useful. That’s why setting a low bar, like doing something for just five minutes, is often, ironically, the best way to get things done that are most important to you.

Now that you know this, you might have some ideas about how to get clearer, braver, and take action when you need to. But just for fun, here are some small projects that Abdaal kept.

Need to make things clear? Carry out a “pre-mortem.” Let’s say you have a crystal ball that lets you see how a job or task turned out, good or bad. Next, make a plan to deal with the first dominoes that fell, which will determine whether the plan succeeded or failed.

Asked to gather courage? Think about the 10/10/10 task. Think about how important this scary event will be in 10 minutes, 10 weeks, and 10 years. A very small number of events are as big as you think they are at first.

To get you to take action, you might want to find a friend who will hold you accountable and help you reach your goals. 

Persisters

A few months after Abdaal started living the dream business life of his dreams, something strange happened to him. At this point, he had quit his job as a young doctor in the NHS to focus on making videos for YouTube full-time.

His hard work paid off right away. Soon, Abdaal was working  on the project he loved. He was making more money than he ever thought he could as a doctor and was in charge of a small group of people who helped him. So why did he lie on his couch face down and complain to his mom about his life? He put play, power, and people first and watched out for doubt, fear, and inaction. What wasn’t there? Keeping up the good work was the last piece of the feel-good efficiency puzzle.

Burnout is the third and final thing that keeps people from reaching their full potential. But Abdaal would find out that there was more to it than that. Abdaal learned that there are three different types of burnout: overwork, exhaustion, and being out of sync. People often lump them all together under the broad term “burnout,” but it will help your healing if you can tell which one you’re dealing with.

These three things were a little too much for Abdaal. You probably guessed that Abdaal then set out to fix each one. Here’s where he ended up: focusing on saving when overworked, recharging when worn out, and realigning when out of whack.

It doesn’t matter if you love what you’re doing after a while. It’s clear when you’re too tired to do anything else. In this case, you need to learn how to say “no” to the great things so you can say “yes” to the amazing ones.

For the same reason, how you spend your free time can also lead to stress. Your time off from work might make you feel just as tired as if you had worked twelve hours. This can happen if your activities aren’t really relaxing, like mindlessly looking through social media or Netflix shows.

Misalignment, on the other hand, may be the hardest type of burnout to spot because it depends less on how many hours you work on something and more on what you do during those hours. Putting up with something that doesn’t fit with your ideals and sense of self is naturally draining.

So, to avoid getting too tired, try planning long breaks into your job. Studies have shown that people can focus better on important tasks when they have 52 minutes of work and 17 minutes of break.

If you want to avoid depletion burnout, spend more time in nature when you have free time. If you have to scroll through something online, take a walk or sit outside in the green. If you have to, look at pictures of nature instead of selfies of famous people.

If none of those worked, misalignment stress could be the reason. Set aside a few minutes to finish the eulogy practice in this case. Even though the name sounds scary, thinking about death can give you a deep understanding of your life. When you die, what do you want your loved ones to say? How would you like people to remember you? Check these answers against what you know now and see if you can make any small changes to get back on track.

So that’s it. You are now officially a feel-good efficiency scientist. Excellent work!

Keep trying new things. Not a specific plan, but having a creative, interested, and playful attitude is what will help you reach your full potential in the end.