Hello everybody, and welcome to this blog. In this blog, I will be writing about Ali Abdaal’s new book, Feel Good Productivity. Ali Abdaal is a world-renowned YouTuber, who makes videos on Productivity, Study habits, and vlogs. Ali has amassed over 5 million subscribers on the platform, which continues to grow. Ali was also a doctor, nurtured at Cambridge University. After much anticipation, his book was released in December 2023, after more than three years since his announcement that he is writing. So, as Ali Abdaal says, ‘let’s dive in’ and explore his new book, Feel Good Productivity
The first chapter I will be summarizing and writing my thoughts on is the first section of the book which is known as ‘Play’.
The first chapter of this book is about Play. Many people attribute success to hard work, motivation, and seriousness. However, the true key to success is play. Take Richard Feynman for example. A famous physicist in the 1900’s who found Physics boring. However, once when he found a student plating with a plate in the cafeteria and noticed the plate wobble, he decided to research more. He would later win the Nobel Peace Prize in yes, Physics. When asked later, Dr Feyman remarked that when he ‘played’ with physics, it helped him understand more. So how can we mix the element of play into our lives? First of all, we need to pick a character.
- Pick a Character
The first important step in how to have a playful life is by picking a character. As mentioned by Dr Stuart Brown, a clinical psychologist, there are eight different ‘play’ personalities. The collector (a person who loves collecting), The competitor (a person who enjoys games and loves winning), The explorer (a person who likes discovering new things), The creator (a person who loves art and creativity), The storyteller (a person who has an active imagination and likes to use in Drama and Writing) The Joker (a person who is a prankster and loves to make people smile) The Director (a person who likes taking the lead role and likes planning things) and the kinesthetic (a person who likes physical activity). By picking one of these characters you can approach your work like your character. For example, if you’re a joker, you could use that personality to turn a serious presentation into a lighthearted one.
- Remember Mary Poppins
The second tip is to be like Mary Poppins. Many people remember Mary Poppins, a famous actor as a person who was just famous on the stage, however, one song has made a very big impact on people’s lives. The one big song was called ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’, where Mary explains that anything can be fine. Most people when being productive hate it, as nothing they do is fun. However, if you are writing a blog right now, like me, and you find it boring, writing a blog might be eating a piece of cake or working in a different environment so that you can have a different vibe. So, wherever you feel that you can’t do anything because it’s boring, think of ways to make your experience fun.
- Lower the stakes
The last important hip in this chapter is to lower the stakes. Wherever we, humans fail, as usual, we feel deflated. We feel that we have just lost everything. Mark Rober, one of my favorite YouTubers, did a study on the art of giving up. In this study, he split the participants into two groups and gave each of the groups a quiz. Each time group A failed a question, they received a message saying ‘You failed. Please try again’ Group B on the other hand received a message saying ‘You have failed. You’ve lost five points. You now have 195 points. Please try again’. Group A had 7 more tries than Group B and was 16 percent higher in success rate. This shows that when people believe that they will fail, they will.
Now to the next part of the blog. In this part, I will be writing on how this chapter affected me positively. When I read this book, I picked out my personality trait as a competitor. So, the next time I wanted to go and exercise in the park, I put my competitor trait on and I pretended that I was in the Olympic sprint 200-meter finals, and I wanted to win. But doing this, not only did I exercise, but I did it without having a grump. Another tip I will tell you about is to lower the steaks. At school, I was unable to win an award I wanted so much, but instead of feeling sad, I lifted my spirits, as I remembered that I had achieved so much in 2023, and I should be proud of myself.
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