Feel Good Productivity | Book Summary

Part 1: Energize

Chapter 1: Play

This experiments in this chapter involves the mind, and how it can cultivate a playful attitude in regards to your tasks and activities.

1) Choose Your Character

Reflect on the 8 Play Personalities that resonates with who you want to play out the most. Do your tasks as if you are that character. The 8 Play Personalities are: The Collector, The Competitor, The Explorer, The Creator, The Storyteller, The Joker, The Director, The Kinesthete.

Question to ask: How would this personality do this task?

2) Embrace Your Curiosity

When you look at your schedule for the day, ask yourself: “What’s today’s side quest going to be?”

Question: What’s today’s side quest going to be?

3) The Magic Post-It Note

Think of a task you don’t want to do now and ask yourself, “What would this look like if it were fun?”

Question: What would this look like if it were fun?

4) Enjoy the Process, Not the Outcome

Think of a task you don’t want to do now and ask yourself, “What is the process in doing this task? How can I improve a particular aspect of the process? How can I have fun in that aspect?”

Question: What is the process in doing this task? How can I improve a particular step in the process?

5) Reframe Your Failure

Think of the task you are doing as an experiment. Each result, pass or failure, is a “data point”.

Question: What are the insights I can learn from the result of this particular task?

6) Don’t be Serious, Be Sincere

Being serious means being too concerned about the outcome of an activity. The outcome is all you care about; anything that diverts from achieving the goal must be avoided. Being sincere means being present with the activity; being sincere means knowing the main value of the activity. There are multiple ways to obtain the value in the activity, so welcome those.

Question: What is the main point of this activity?

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Chapter 2: Power

Power is about control over your tasks. This chapter deals with confidence, being a student and a teacher, and developing intrinsic motivation.

1) The Confidence Switch

When we feel confident in our ability to do a task, we feel good while we’re doing it.
Question: What would it look like if I were really confident that I could do this?

2) The Social Model Method

If other people can do your task, you can do it too.
Question: Who were able to do this? Who are doing this right now?

3) The Shoshin Approach

Shoshin means “beginner’s mind”. Beginners don’t have strong beliefs of what will work; they just try.

Enactive mastery – Learn by doing. Embrace innovation and experimentation.

Question: If I were a beginner in this task, what are the things allowed to happen?

4) The Protege Effect

“He who teaches learns” – Seneca

If you are concerned that you’re not qualified enough to teach someone else, it’s worth remembering that the people we learn from the best are those just steps ahead of us.

Question: How can I teach this to someone?

5) Own the Process

When we can’t take ownership of the situation, we can still take ownership of the process.

There’s almost always a way for us to own the process of a task, even when the outcome has been determined by someone else.

If you can’t choose what you work on, you can still choose how you work on it.

Question: How can I work on this task that I don’t feel like doing in a process that feels good to me?

6) Own Your Mindset

Change your mindset of the reason for doing the task from “have to” to “choose to”.

Question: Do I choose to do this task or do I have to do this task?

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Chapter 3: People

All the most innovative and groundbreaking musicians of all time did not work in isolation.

1) The Comrade Mindset

Teamwork is not just a way of dividing up tasks; it is a psychological state. It’s a mindset.

Find a way to make you feel like you are working as part of a team, all collaborating to solve the problem. In the experiment, this gives a boost to make people work 48% longer on the problem compared to people who didn’t have this mindset.

One example of a practical way to get into the comrade mindset is to pass out notes with helpful tips to others.

2) Find Synchronicity

Synchronicity makes us want to help others. And it makes us want to help ourselves.

Working in tandem with others tends to make us more productive.

Sync sessions: Try to find people with whom you can work in sync, even if you aren’t necessarily woking on the same thing.

3) Random Acts of Kindness

Helper’s High: Helping others make you feel happier.

Practical ways to get Helper’s High

• When you make yourself coffee, offer to make others coffee too.
• When working in a cafe, offer to get the food for others as well when it’s ready.

4) Ask for Help From Others

Helper’s High: Asking help from others is a gift to them.

Benjamin Franklin example: He had a problem. He wanted to run for re-election but a rival legislator was saying unfavorable things against him which would jeopardize his campaign. Having heard that his rival had a rare book in his library, he wrote a note to him expressing his desire of borrowing that book. To his surprise, his rival sent it immediately. When Franklin returned the book, he sent a note expressing how much he enjoyed it. They became great friends afterwards, lasting even until his death.

Tips for asking help from others

• Remove your reluctance to ask. People are more eager to help than you think.
• Ask for help in person. In one study, they found that asking for help in person is 34% more effective than asking for help in email.
• Avoid using negative phrases like ‘I feel really bad for asking you to do this’.
• Avoid turning it into a transaction by saying things like ‘If you help me, I’ll do this for you’.
• Emphasize the positive aspects of the person. ‘I saw your work on X and it really had an impact on me. I would love to hear how you did it’

5) Overcommunicate the Good

This is about sharing good news.

Swedish proverb: ‘A shared joy is a double joy; a shared sorrow is a half sorrow.’

First step: Capitalisation: Share positive news and react to positive news in an energizing way. For Responding to good news, respond like Cheerleader Charlie. It makes the sharer of the good news happier and makes the relationship stronger.

Second step: Recall to the sharer how you’ve seen their process of working so hard leading to the good news. Past.

Third step: Share how excited you are for their future and the opportunities ahead of them. Future.

6) Overcommunicate the Not-so-good

This is about sharing bad news.

Be radically candid by caring personally and directly challenging the issue at hand.

Example: ‘Here’s what I think. Can you hear me out or help me out? We can do it together.’

First step: Root your analysis in objective, non-judgmental terms.

Second step: Focus on the tangible results of what’s gone wrong.

Third step: Turn your focus from the problem to the solution by providing alternatives of what you’d like to see happen.

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Part 2: Unblock

This section is about tackling procrastination. There are several ways people go about tackling it: motivation method, discipline method, and ‘unblock’ method. The first two are band-aids covering up deep wounds. The unblock method is about dealing with the root cause of the problem.

Chapter 4: Seek Clarity

Seeking clarity is about dealing with uncertainty by asking and answering the questions: why, what, and when.

• Why – asking one time and asking 5 times: Commander’s Intent and The Five Whys
• What – asking what to do and what are the possible impediments: NICE Goals and The Crystal Ball Method
• When – not using a calendar and using a calendar: Implementation Intentions and Time Blocking

1) Using Commander’s Intent

When starting a new project, ask yourself, “What is the ultimate purpose behind this?”, and build your to-do list from there.

2) The Five Whys

Basically just like the Commander’s Intent but asking ‘why’ 5 times.

3) NICE Goals

You can use NICE Goals for the short-term and SMART Goals for the long-term.

4) The Crystal Ball Method

Think about what could go wrong.

• Imagine it’s one week later and you still haven’t started the task you intended to. What are the top 3 reasons why you didn’t get to it?
• What can you do to mitigate the risk of those top 3 reasons derailing you?
• Who can you ask for help in sticking to this commitment?
• What action can you do right now that will increase the odds that you’ll actually do the task?

5) Implementation Intentions

If you decide beforehand when you are going to do something, you are more likely to do it.

One way to do this is to create a trigger. If X happens, then I’ll do Y. Also called If-then prompts.

• If you want to turn your sporadic fruit eating behavior into a long-term change: “When I walk into the kitchen, I will eat an apple”.
• If you want to spend more time with your family in the long term: “When I get home from work, I will call my Mum”
• “When I return home from work, then I will open my laptop and start writing.”
• “When I log out from work, then I will change into my gym clothes.”

6) Time Blocking

Time-blocking is about using your calendar to allocate time to your tasks.

3-level system for Time-blocking

• Time-block in your calendar the individual tasks you’ve been avoiding. i.e. Declutter desk, write for 30 mins.
• Time-block your other daily tasks that matter to you. i.e. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, exercise, sleep, hobbies, relaxation.
• Block out your ideal week. You don’t have to follow the schedule in your ideal week. It just gives you clarity and structure for the activities that matter to you.

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Chapter 5: Find Courage

Finding courage is dealing with Fear, another blocker for productivity. Fear impedes our feel-good hormones and clouds our thinking and problem-solving capabilities.

1) The Emotion Label

This technique is also called ‘Affect labelling’.

Steps to do when you’re procrastinating:

1. Ask yourself, ‘What am I afraid of?’
2. Where does this fear come from? Is it a ‘me’ problem or a ‘them’ problem. Me problems are fears associated with your perception of your ability. Them problems are fears associated with how other people will react to what you do
3. Tell yourself the experience you’re going through, but as a story about someone else. What fear might this character be afraid of? What fear might this character be holding from from starting their task?

2) The Identity Label

Labeling Theory: Labels become self-fulfilling prophecies. People given a negative label like ‘criminal’ are more likely to repeat criminal behavior.

Just like negative labels can amplify our fears, positive labels can overcome them.

Example: Using ‘life-learner’ as your identity label when having self-doubt.

When you’re procrastinating, ask yourself ‘Am I over-identifying with the problem?’ like saying “I’m a chronic procrastinator”, or “I’m not a runner”, or “I’m scared of maths”, or “I don’t like creative tasks”.

3) The 10-10-10 Rule

Catastrophizing blocks us from making any progress by freezing us into a state of paralysis. The solution is Cognitive Reappraisal. One technique of Cognitive Reappraisal is The 10-10-10 Rule

When something triggers you and causes Negative Emotions, ask yourself:

1. Will this matter in 10 minutes?
2. Will this matter in 10 weeks?
3. Will this matter in 10 years?

4) The Confidence Equation

Self-Confidence = Perception of ability – Perception of standards

The higher the Perception of ability compared to Perception of standards, the higher the Self-Confidence.

If we believe our ability is higher than the standard needed, then we’re confident. If we believe our ability is lower than the standard needed, then we’re doubtful.

When you’re procrastinating, ask yourself, “How confident do I actually need to feel to just get started with this?”. “Could I just get started even though I’m feeling unconfident?” The answer is almost always yes for day-to-day tasks.

This deals with Perfectionism hindering you from starting your task. Just start the task. You don’t need to feel perfect for a long time yet.

5) Stop Spotlighting

The Spotlight Effect is a psychological phenomenon where people think they are being noticed more than they actually are. This results in Fear and therefore paralysis, hindering us from doing our task.

Solution: No one cares mindset When you think people are noticing you, say to yourself “no one cares”.

Examples:

• No one cares if my first few Youtube videos are terrible and cringey.
• No one cares if I write a blogpost that are a bit rambly because I haven’t have much experience in writing.
• No one cares if I show up to this salsa dancing class as a total beginner without a partner.
• No one cares if my belt doesn’t match my shoes when I attend this party.

6) The Batman Effect

How to deal with more intense fear of public humiliation or self-doubt which stops us from doing our task? Use The Batman Effect

One research at University of Pennsylvania found that those who were asked to imagine themselves as superheroes or other characters exhibited significantly better self-control, focus, and perseverance than those who were asked to just go on doing their tasks or those who were asked to reflect on their thoughts and feelings while doing their tasks.

How to use the Batman effect?

Take an alter ego like Batman, the Flash, Naruto, or Dora the Explorer. Embody their qualities like confidence, bravery, and determination. Visualize yourself transforming into the alternative you. Imagine yourself adopting their posture, voice, and mindset. Use a mantra for reminding yourself of their qualities. For example: I am confident. I am fearless. I am unstoppable.

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Chapter 6: Get Started

1) Reduce Environmental Friction

Focus on changing your default choices in your environment.

Examples:

• Put your task equipments in the living room where they are more accessible.
• Add notes and labels in your room reminding you to do your particular task.

2) Reduce Emotional Friction

When you find yourself procrastinating, use the Five minute rule: Commit to your task for five minutes and then decide if you want to continue the task or not continue. If you don’t feel like continuing the task, give yourself permission to stop. At least you made progress for five minutes, and also you did not lie to yourself, which ultimately feels good.

3) Define the Next Action Step

When you find yourself procrastinating from anything, ask yourself, “What’s the next action step?”

Examples:

• When you’re procrastinating from studying for your exam, your next action step is to get your textbook out and open it to the page of the topic for your exam.
• When you’re procrastinating from going to the gym, your next action step is to find your gym clothes and wear them.
• When you’re procrastinating from writing your book, your next action step is to turn on your laptop and open Google Docs.

This method turns the abstract into the concrete. It takes our mind from an intimidatingly large task into a more achievable one. It helps us calm down by allowing for a ‘layer of self-deception’. Eventually, you still have to complete the whole thing, take the exam, speak in front of a crowd, but you don’t have to worry about that now.

4) Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress provides you with tangible evidence that you are progressing towards your goals.

Examples:

• Using a workout log to track your health goals, and writing out the exercises you did, how long you did it for, and how you felt after doing it.
• Making a spreadsheet that lists all the modules you need to study for the exam and setting marker for each module as you finish studying them.
• Writing a learning journal when learning a new skill, writing down what you’re learning, any questions you might have, and any breakthroughs or ‘aha’ moments you encounter.

5) Find an Accountability Buddy

Starting a task alone is infinitely more difficult than starting it together with other people. People energize us and compels our sense of duty.

How to set up an accountability partnership?

1. Find your buddy. Find someone with a shared outlook and similar goals. Friends can be a starting point, but strangers are often the best buddies. If you aspire to write a book, find someone who also writes a book, or writes other stuff like blogs, reviews, or tweets, etc. In this way, you’ll have someone who understands your woes and appreciates your successes.
2. Agree on your accountability culture. Set ground rules. What would a positive approach to accountability look like? What amount of contact are you looking for? How can the other best help you? Criteria for best accountability buddies:
   • Disciplined. They must stick to what you’ve agreed to.
   • Challenging. They know what it means to help you move to the next level.
   • Patient. They don’t jump to conclusions or rush to make decisions.
   • Supportive. They’re there with words of encouragement.
   • Constructive. They know how to give you honest feedback and constructive criticism.
3. Discuss your accountability process. How are you going to hold your buddy accountable? What to do specifically, and when?

When done right, this provides a positive peer pressure to make progress on your goals. It also provides someone to share your triumphs and mourn your woes.

6) Forgive Yourself

Shame and guilt of not doing your tasks can hinder you to start doing it. Self-forgiveness allows you to move on from your post-procrastination shame and guilt.

How to forgive yourself? Find the win. Examples:

• “I didn’t go for that early morning jog session today. But I did get an extra hour of sleep which helped me feel more refreshed than usual.”
• “I didn’t finish the last part of that report. But it was for good reason. I chatted with a colleague in the staff kitchen and we had a lovely catch up.”
• “I didn’t finish that job application today. But I got to spend time with Grandma instead, so that’s a win for today.”

You can focus on the small losses, or you can celebrate the small wins. Celebrating the small wins feels good.

Procrastination isn’t always something we can control; however, forgiveness is. In this way, we can deal with our negative emotions which hinders us from being productive.

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Part 3: Sustain

This section is about tackling burnout. There are three types of burnouts: overexertion burnouts, depletion burnouts, misalignment burnouts.

Chapter 7: Conserve

This chapter deals with overexertion burnouts.

1) The Energy Investment Portfolio

One way to avoid overexertion burnouts is to avoid overcommitting to appointments and invitations. One way to avoid overcommitment is to see where our energy is actually going.

Create two lists. List 1 is about your dreams, hopes, and ambitions that you would like to work on someday. List 2 is about your active investments you’re working on right now. These lists can be as long as you like. It might be better for List 2 to be on single digits though. If you want to move your dream to your active investments, make sure you have enough time and energy for it.

2) The Power of No

It can be hard to say no. How can we force ourselves to say it? One is the “Hell Yeah” test and the other is the “Tomorrow” test.

The Hell Yeah test: When you find yourself weighing on whether to take a commitment or a project, limit yourself to two options: “hell yeah” or no. 95% of the time, the answer is not “hell yeah”. Most of the time, it is somewhere along the lines of, “This could be useful”, or “This is somewhat interesting, so why not?”. These are the justifications your brain should overrule. Think of what you have on your plate already. If it isn’t a “hell yeah”, it’s not worth doing.

The Tomorrow test: This deals with the ‘six-week trap’, where you look at your calendar, see all the blank space, and think “I could totally say yes to this”. As the weeks progress, the empty spaces start to become full. By the time the day comes around, you realize you shouldn’t have said yes – but you’ve said it and people are going to be disappointed if you don’t follow through. The The Tomorrow test is this: Every time you are presented with a request six-weeks from now, ask yourself, “Would I say yes to this if it was happening tomorrow?”. “Would I be excited about this commitment if it were happening tomorrow?”. In six weeks, your life would most likely be as busy as today. If you wouldn’t say yes to something happening tomorrow, you shouldn’t say yes to it in a month or more.

3) Add Friction

This deals with how to focus on one task and avoid distractions.

Uninstall whatever social media you’re addicted to from your phone. If you want to access them, use the web browser. This additional friction allows you to momentarily consider whether you actually want to be spending your time on Facebook or Twitter.

Log out from all your social media. You can still use them but you need to login first, which takes about 30 seconds – enough to make you stop checking your feed at all.

4) Correct Course

Sometimes, it’s ok to be distracted. Even airplanes get flown off-course and have to re-adjust due to strong winds. When this happens, pilots adjust the course by a few degrees. It’s impossible to completely eradicate distractions. So instead, allow yourself permission to be distracted temporarily, and then correct course. As long as we correct course, we still end up in our intended destination. Recite the mantra, ‘Begin again’. You don’t need to fail with abandon. You can always begin again on your tasks.

5) Schedule Your Breaks

One way to conserve energy is to find moments in your working day to do nothing. Schedule more of it than you think. Breaks aren’t a special treat, they’re a necessity. Doctors and army generals in the battlefield have to take a break every four hours. If they don’t, they would lose focus while people’s lives are at stake.

6) Embrace Energizing Distractions

Not every break needs to be scheduled. There are distractions that are unplanned yet energizing like quality time with friends.

Chapter 8: Recharge

This chapter deals with depletion burnouts. The idea is that creative activities recharge us and there are four characteristics for a creative activity that recharge us.

1) CALM Hobbies

A CALM hobby is open-ended and has no clear end point.

2) CALM Projects

A CALM project can be anything creative that has a clear end point. Accomplishing a project builds competence and autonomy. Incorporating people into it would boost the effect of taking on this project.

3) Bring in Nature

Do you feel like you’re working too much or are you having a difficult time concentrating on your tasks?

Look at nature. Listen to nature. Smell nature! Taste nature! (Ok I’m kidding with the last one.)

Spending time in nature boosts our energy, re-energizes our cognitive abilities, and reduces our stress.

In a research study, patients heal faster after surgery having a window view of nature in their hospital rooms, compared to having a darker forest photograph, abstract art, or no images at all. This is supported by decades of research – nature makes us feel good.

Personally, I feel fortunate to work in Makati. This city offers Ayala Triangle Gardens, Legazpi Active Park, and Jaime Velasquez Park, among others, where I can spend time in nature and take a break when I have fried my brain from working too much.

But what if you’re working from home in a city or you don’t have the fortune of having nature around at your workplace? Well, it turns out you can still feel the rejuvenating effects of nature by looking at picture of trees or listening to natural sounds wherever you are. You can consider having a small plant in your home, or putting a photo of the natural world at your bedside table. Or consider allotting 5 minutes listening to natural sounds.

Basking in the glory of the natural world is one of the ways we can recharge properly.

4) Take a Walk

How to recharge without downloading nature sounds on your phone? Take a walk outside. You can take a walk in the street or in the park. You can walk alone or with a friend.

5) Let Your Mind Wander

Schedule periods of nothingness in your life.

6) The Reitoff Principle (Sabbath)

Take a sabbatical. By doing less today, you can do more of what matters to you tomorrow.

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Chapter 9: Align

This chapter deals with misalignment burnouts. Misalignment burnouts come from the negative feelings you experience when your tasks don’t align with your sense of self. The solution to this is to find out what matters to you and then align your tasks with it. This involves thinking about the long-term and the medium-term horizon.

Extrinsic Motivation is motivation that comes from external rewards of an action. Example: “I am doing this because people will like me more and respect what I do”.

Introjected Motivation is motivation that comes from guilt of not doing an action. Example: “I am doing this so that I won’t feel guilty”

Identified Motivation is motivation that comes from personal values. Example: “I am doing this because I value the goal it’s helping me work towards”

Intrinsic Motivation is motivation that comes from internal pleasure of doing an action. Example: “I am doing this because I enjoy the process as an end of itself”

1) The Eulogy Method

When we think of death, we get a clearer view of life. This is supported by those who experienced the earthquake in Sepulveda VAMC when their values shifted towards intrinsically motivated goals.

Example: One employee who once worked for career advancement and material wealth now worked towards nurturing personal relationships. One employee who sought validation from external praise began to pursue personal growth for its own sake.

Ask yourself, “What would I feel good about someone saying in my eulogy?”. What would I want my family to say about me? What would I want my friends, co-workers, or distant relatives to say about me?

2) The Odyssey Plan

Ask yourself, “What do you want your life to look like in five years’ time?”

Reflect on the following and write out in detail:

1. Your Current Path: What would your life look like five years from now if you continued down your current path?
2. Your Alternative Path: What would your life look like five years from now if you took a completely different path?
3. Your Radical Path: What would your life look like five years from now if you took a completely different path, where money, social obligations, and what people would think, were irrelevant?

3) The Wheel of Life

The Wheel of Life is one exercise where you can know your values and affirm them. In that way, you’ll make your abstract ideals real.

In each area of your life, ask yourself, “To what extent do I feel like my current actions are aligned with my personal values?”. Color each segment accordingly. If you feel completely fulfilled, color up the entire segment. If you feel completely unfulfilled, leave the segment blank.

By doing this, you’ll find clarity on what you value the most. It also explains how to turn your values into a set of coherent objectives.

4) The 12-Month Celebration

This method converts your dreams into actions.

Imagine it’s 12 months from now and you’re having dinner with your best friend or partner. You’re celebrating how much progress you’ve made in the areas of life that are important to you over the last year.

Look back at the values you’ve identified in The Wheel of Life and write down what you want to tell your best friend about the progress you’ve made in each of them. Ask yourself, “If I was to make my 12-month celebration a reality, what would I need to do over the next year to get over there?”, “What is the first action step?”

5) The Three Alignment Quests

Set 3 quests that you can accomplish for the day. One for each category: health, work, relationships.

For example, “you’re a working parent, juggling the demands of your job, your health and your family life. Your alignment quests could include:

1. H – Take a 15-minute walk during my lunch break
2. W – Complete the project proposal draft by lunchtime
3. R – Cook a healthy dinner for the family and spend quality time together”

1. “H – Go for a 30-minute run after class
2. W – Spend an extra hour studying for tomorrow’s exam
3. R – Catch up with Katherine over coffee after study session”

College student aiming to improve your grades, maintain fitness, and strengthen your friendships

6) Alignment Experiments

Scientific Experiment:

1. Identify an area of your life that you find unfulfilling.
2. Come up with your hypothesis. If you were to change some variable in your life, what would it be? What effect would it have on your situation?
3. Execute. Log the effects on a journal.