This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Feel-Good Productivity" by Ali Abdaal. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What’s the science of productivity? Why is Ali Abdaal’s feel-good productivity effective?
When work feels good, it energizes you instead of draining you, meaning you can get a lot more done. Therefore, the best type of productivity not only boosts your emotional well-being, it also benefits the people who rely on you.
Take a closer look at how productivity, particularly Abdaal’s model, keeps you energized throughout the day.
Why Feel-Good Productivity Works
Abdaal, who trained as a medical doctor, says that feel-good productivity is effective because it harnesses people’s natural biology and neurology. In simple terms, the science of productivity says that your body and brain instinctively know when you’re working in a healthy way; they reward you for it with good feelings (to encourage you to keep working that way) and increased energy (so you’re able to keep working that way).
Abdaal explains that you feel positive emotions when your brain releases certain hormones, such as dopamine and serotonin. However, these hormones don’t just produce pleasant feelings, they also have a wide variety of effects that will make you more energetic and productive. For instance, the feeling of excitement comes from dopamine; dopamine also boosts your concentration so you can more effectively pursue the thing you’re excited about.
So, Abdaal designed the feel-good productivity model to help you work in ways that cause you to produce more of those attention- and energy-boosting hormones, and your good feelings let you know that you’re doing it correctly.
| Harnessing Hormones: From Survival to Productivity By harnessing hormones such as dopamine, Abdaal’s feel-good productivity model takes advantage of the evolutionary traits that kept our ancient ancestors alive. In Behave, neurologist Robert Sapolsky explains that certain behaviors, driven by hormones, helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce—for instance, dopamine would have motivated them to find food, shelter, and people to mate with. The ones who were most motivated would have been the most successful, so those behaviors (and the hormones that drive them) got passed down through generations, while less successful behaviors died out. In other words, feel-good productivity takes the results of millions of years of evolution and directs them toward meeting modern-day needs. |
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Here's what you'll find in our full Feel-Good Productivity summary:
- How to stop procrastination at its source and avoid or recover from burnout
- The crucial link between emotional health and productivity
- How to work in ways that feel energizing instead of draining
