Book Review - Feel Good Productivity

The Book:  Feel Good Productivity: How to do more of what matters to you by Ali Abdaal

Synopsis:

A discussion of how to find the joy in your life and work and improve your productivity as a result with practical tips.

About the author:

Ali Abdaal is a former medical doctor who has become an expert in productivity after trying to juggle medical school and a YouTube channel.

TLDR: Find a job you are connected to, make your work day fun, manage your time, take responsibility for your own outcomes for a happier, more productive life.

Abdaal is an engaging writer whose passion on his subject is evident and "Feel Good Productivity" is an enjoyable and easy read with lots of great and relatable examples. It ties together lots of concepts you might be familiar with (purpose, habit forming, boundary setting, managing flow) with the objective of finding the joy in what you do as a means of improving productivity. It is clearly evidence based with a good mixture of academic and business references.

For those looking for the silver bullet productivity hack to manage their ever-increasing workload in a job they don’t enjoy – you’ll be disappointed to learn that there isn’t one (or at least not in this book), and while there were some productivity hacks included, the focus is skewed towards finding the feel good factor more than efficiency and effectiveness.

The ways to find this flow logically through the book with each concept building nicely on the previous one as it progresses, but it would have been useful to have a picture showing how they hung together – a cheat sheet to help remember what was covered in each section and take away after. The model felt a little repetitious sometimes (with topics such as confidence repeated in multiple chapters) - perhaps having a picture of the model would have made it clearer to understand the threads tying them together.

You’ll find this useful if:

You are in a job you like but have lost your mojo - it would be a great ebook to listen to on your commute to give you ideas on how to make your day better.

You are looking for day to day productivity hacks or you’re already familiar with the work of authors like James Clear, Simon Sinek, Brene Brown and Adam Grant.

Change your story...
From "I don't enjoy my job" 
To "I love what I do - it doesn't feel like work"

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