MBA2581 Must Read: Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal - The $100 MBA Show

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: MBA2581 Must Read – Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal

Release Date: February 3, 2025
Host: Omar Zenhom
Guest: Ali Abdaal
Book Discussed: Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal

Introduction

In episode MBA2581 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into Ali Abdaal's insightful book, Feel Good Productivity. Recognized for its practical approach, the episode dissects the book's core principles, offering listeners actionable strategies to enhance productivity without succumbing to burnout. Omar, leveraging his 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience, provides a comprehensive analysis of how Feel Good Productivity can transform one's approach to work and personal goals.

Who Should Read Feel Good Productivity

Omar begins by identifying the target audience for Ali Abdaal's book:

Entrepreneurs Seeking Sustainability: Individuals looking for enduring strategies to manage and grow their businesses without burning out.
Professionals Feeling Stuck: Those trapped in the monotonous grind of a nine-to-five job, yearning for a more fulfilling and productive work life.
Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Individuals transitioning from traditional employment to entrepreneurship, seeking productivity techniques that align with their newfound freedom.
General Audience: Anyone desiring to achieve more while maintaining joy and balance in their daily activities.

Notable Quote:
Ali Abdaal introduces Feel Good Productivity with an innovative concept: “What if productivity could feel good instead of draining?” (00:45)

Five Key Takeaways from Feel Good Productivity

Omar outlines five significant lessons from the book, each aimed at redefining traditional productivity paradigms.

1. Productivity is About Doing What Matters, Not Just Doing More

Summary:
Ali Abdaal emphasizes that true productivity isn't about filling one's schedule with endless tasks. Instead, it's about prioritizing actions that align with personal goals and values.

Application:
Omar shares his method of maintaining a weekly to-do list, focusing on high-impact tasks that drive his business forward, such as recording podcast episodes and attending coaching calls.

Notable Quote:
“Productivity isn't about cramming your schedule with as many tasks as possible. It means focusing on the tasks that truly align with your goals and values.” (05:15)

2. Energy is Your Most Valuable Resource

Summary:
Ali shifts the focus from time management to energy management, asserting that aligning tasks with one's energy levels enhances efficiency and effectiveness.

Application:
Omar details his daily routine, scheduling high-energy tasks like content creation immediately after his morning gym session and reserving lower-energy activities for later in the day.

Notable Quote:
“Energy and time go hand in hand. Managing your energy can make you more effective with the time you have.” (08:20)

3. The Power of Small Wins

Summary:
Celebrating minor achievements fosters momentum and reinforces positive behavior, which is crucial for sustained productivity.

Application:
Omar advocates breaking down larger goals into manageable tasks and celebrating each milestone, whether it's completing a podcast episode or hitting a weekly target.

Notable Quote:
“Celebrating small accomplishments creates momentum and helps you feel good about your progress.” (12:10)

4. Embrace the Joy of Learning

Summary:
Continuous learning fuels productivity by keeping the mind engaged and adaptable. Ali encourages dedicating time each week to acquire new skills or knowledge.

Application:
Omar illustrates this by sharing how his colleague Nicole is improving her French, demonstrating how integrating learning into daily routines can enhance both personal and professional growth.

Notable Quote:
“Curiosity and the love of learning are key drivers of productivity. When you enjoy growth, productivity becomes natural.” (15:05)

5. Focus on Systems, Not Goals

Summary:
Ali advocates for establishing consistent systems and routines rather than solely fixating on end goals. Systems provide structure and facilitate ongoing progress.

Application:
Omar compares this approach to fitness routines, where consistent gym attendance naturally leads to desired physical outcomes, paralleling how consistent work systems lead to business success.

Notable Quote:
“Creating systems for your daily habits is more effective than obsessing over long-term goals.” (18:40)

Critique of Feel Good Productivity

While Omar praises the book's practical strategies and refreshing perspective on productivity, he expresses a few reservations:

Lack of Personal Examples:
Omar notes that Ali Abdaal predominantly draws examples from his medical background and scientific studies rather than his entrepreneurial journey. This absence of firsthand entrepreneurial anecdotes makes it harder for creator-entrepreneurs to fully relate to and implement the concepts.
Desire for More Entrepreneurial Insights:
Omar suggests that including more stories from Ali's experiences as a YouTuber and business owner would enhance the book's relatability and applicability for entrepreneurs.

Notable Quote:
“I wish I heard more about how these concepts have helped him as an entrepreneur, as a creator, because I'm a creator, I'm an entrepreneur. I want to see how he works and how he applies this stuff.” (17:50)

Conclusion and Recap

Omar wraps up the episode by reiterating the invaluable lessons from Feel Good Productivity and encouraging listeners to adopt its principles for a balanced and effective approach to productivity.

Recap of Five Takeaways:

Do What Matters: Focus on tasks that align with your goals and values.
Manage Your Energy: Align tasks with your energy levels for optimal efficiency.
Celebrate Small Wins: Recognize and celebrate minor achievements to build momentum.
Joyful Learning: Incorporate continuous learning into your routine to stay engaged and adaptable.
Systems Over Goals: Establish consistent systems and routines to ensure ongoing progress.

Notable Quote:
“Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal is a must-read if you're looking for a productivity approach that doesn't feel like a grind or hustle culture.” (19:00)

Final Thoughts

The $100 MBA Show episode MBA2581 offers a thorough exploration of Feel Good Productivity, highlighting its strengths in redefining productivity and offering practical strategies for sustained success. While Omar appreciates the book's framework, he advocates for more entrepreneurial-centric examples to bolster its applicability for creators and business owners. Overall, the episode serves as a valuable guide for anyone seeking to enhance their productivity while maintaining joy and balance in their pursuits.

For More Insights and Recommendations:

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Transcript

Ali Abdaal (0:00)

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Omar Zenhom (0:07)

And helmet. Done. See you, dad.

Ali Abdaal (0:09)

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Omar Zenhom (0:45)

What if Productivity could feel good instead of draining? That's the premise of Ali Abdel's book Feel Good Productivity. In this book he shares practical strategies to get more done in a way that feels joyful and sustainable. And I really like this concept, this big idea that like if you want to get more done, you really should try to enjoy the process. Kind of makes total sense. But what makes this book so, you know, productive or so helpful is the how this book flips the script on the traditional hustle mentality and focuses on making productivity something you actually enjoy. Today I'm going to break down this book and tell you what it's all about. Who's it for? And my five favorite takeaways. The biggest takeaways I got from this book that can help you be more productive without sacrificing your well being and just feeling good about what you're doing every day. Plus I'm going to share where I think Ali kind of disappointed me in this book. More about that later. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm where I help you start, grow and scale your business with practical business lessons three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. My job here is to help you take action so that after every episode you can learn something, you can implement it and get better and move one step closer to your goals. Today's episode is a must read episode where I share with you a book that I've read that has impacted me, influenced me, helped me in some way. So if it's on this podcast it's worth reading and I share with you my favorite takeaways, what you will really enjoy about this book, where you'll find benefit from it and in this book Feel Good Productivity is going to help you if you've ever struggled with burnout or found yourself dreading your to do list, whether you're in a job right now or you're transitioning out of your job into entrepreneurship or you're in full time entrepreneurship right now, it's packed with actionable tips to help you get more done without sacrificing the joy of what you're trying to do here and without total imbalance. This book is a bit of fresh air from what we see on social media with people shouting to work harder to not working hard enough, you're not sacrificing enough. This is a different perspective. So let's dive in. So what is Feel Good Productivity all about? Well, I found that Ali in this book tried to create a guide to redefine productivity instead of focusing on grinding harder or doing more just for the sake of it. Right? Ali encourages us to align our work with our energy, with our values, with our joy. So I first want to just outline who I think this book is for. This book is going to be helpful. If you're an entrepreneur looking for more of a sustainable way to approach your work, you might be a professional in a job feeling stuck in the grind of the nine to five life. Maybe you feel like transitioning and you want to get a little bit more productive so that you have time to do your side hustle. Or I would say in general, it's for anyone who wants to achieve more while feeling good about it. I want to also mention that as somebody who's been doing entrepreneurship for over 20 years, I've been doing it full time since 2012. So it's been 13 years now. @ the end of the day, even if you create your own life and your own business and your own work schedule and everything, eventually when you're doing something consistently, it does start to feel mundane and a bit like a job and sometimes the joy of it kind of fizzles out, kind of fades away. And it's important for you to to re inject joy. It's important for you to remind yourself why you're doing this in the first place and how you can have more fun with it and remind yourself of the autonomy that you have. So even if you're a totally independent entrepreneur and you're working hard on your business, you can really fall into this trap of like not feeling great about what you're doing every day. And this really makes you feel bored and doesn't allow you to be productive and you don't have that energy you had when you first started that business where you had so much motivation. I also want to say that this whole thing about feeling good about your business and using that as motivation to be more productive, it's different for everybody. Some people have that drive, they just have that hunger for success. They're highly competitive, that that flame doesn't really fade. And on the other side of spectrum, there's a lot of people that just get bored very easily, very quickly. So whether you're on, you know, the extreme, you know, super motivated spectrum side of the spectrum, or the person that kind of gets bored very quickly, I find that this book could be helpful in just even just reminding you to have fun and enjoy what you do. So I want to share with you my five biggest takeaways from this book. And the first one is productivity isn't about doing more. It's about doing what matters. I really enjoyed this part of the book. I'm really glad it was at the start of the book because I think it's really important. I think Ali really does a good job emphasizing that being productive doesn't mean cramming your schedule with as many tasks as possible. It means focusing on the tasks that truly align with your goals and values, really getting real about what are you trying to do, where are you trying to go and what are the tasks and the things you need to take on, like the action steps you need to take that actually get you closer there rather than kind of making you feel like I'm busy, like I'm, I'm, I'm working hard here, you know, that you can just kind of validate that feeling of you're trying. So in the book, he talks about how to apply this idea of really focusing on what really matters to you. And he says to start each day by identifying your most important tasks and work on that first. And I've been doing this for a very long time, so it was kind of nice to see that my practice has been validated by somebody else. What I do is I like to do a to do list for the week. I like to just jot down everything in my notebook of, you know, if this week would be a win. These are the things I need to get done now. They're not like every little small task. It's just like, hey, I need to record X amount of episodes of the podcast. I need to do this meeting, I need to get on this coaching call, whatever it is. Like, these are the things that are gonna actually move the needle in my business. And if I get these things done, it'll be A successful week. And then it's kind of like a master list. And then I pull from that list every day and say, okay, today I'm gonna work on those things to make a dent and move forward and get closer to what would be a successful week. Just side note, I actually tried to do this for the whole month and I found it to be very difficult to kind of measure how much I can actually do in a month and what is important for the whole month to be successful. I just found it easier to concentrate on the week because a week is just five days. I can really have a vision for what that week would look like. My second favorite takeaway from this book is energy is your most valuable resource. And for a very long time, even till today, I say time is your most valuable resource because you can't make more time. But I think they kind of go hand in hand, energy and time. And that's one of the things that Ali highlights in the books, how tasks feel easier or harder, depending on your energy levels, right? If you feel good about it. So you actually can make use of the time you have or make more use of your time if you have the right energy. So how do you apply this? How do you actually do this in your day to day? Well, he talks about schedule high energy tasks when you feel most alert and save low energy tasks when you're naturally more kind of lethargic or tired. And this is what I do every day. So my ideal schedule is I wake up in the morning, I have breakfast, I go to the gym. I like to start with the gym because it allows me to get energy right? And I kind of get that out of the way. And the day's kind of rest of the day is a win because I went to the gym already. But then immediately after the gym, I get to work, I take a shower, I get to work and I work on all the high energy tasks, high cognitive tasks like scripting videos or shooting an episode like this one, which I'm doing, you know, at this time period. I just went to the gym an hour ago. So this is where I do all my high energy tasks. And then things like email, things like, you know, phone calls, things like that. I can do that when my energy has dwindled and it doesn't require me to be fully focused and high energy. And that's usually at the end of the day for 5:00. My third favorite takeaway from this book is the power of small wins. I'm a big believer of this wins and celebrating those Small wins are essential to your success as an entrepreneur, especially at the start, because you need that momentum. In the book, Ali shares how celebrating small accomplishments creates momentum, like I just mentioned, and helps you feel good about your progress. Just kind of that positive reinforcement that, hey, I can do good things, I can create good things, I can have wins under my belt. I am pretty good at what I do. The problem with a lot of high achievers and entrepreneurs in general, I found that we always look forward. We always look at what's next. We always look at what are we going to do the next launch, next product, you know, the next million dollars. We're trying to make whatever it is right? And we rarely look behind. We never look forward what we've accomplished. You know, we never kind of give ourselves a chance to kind of say, hey, I've done good things. I've actually accomplished a lot. And we don't actually stop and celebrate wins. And it's really important because this gives us the confidence and the momentum to keep going. In the book, this is how he recommends. How to apply this concept is to break down goals into smaller manageable tasks and celebrate each milestone. Even if it's like, hey, I want to record two YouTube videos by the end of the day. And once you do that, you can't just like, check it off the list and that's it. You should celebrate it somehow. You know, you should just take a moment, even just say, I've done it. You know, I promised myself to do this. I was committed to doing it. I got it done, I held to my word. Maybe even just go for a walk, enjoy yourself with a nice, you know, playlist of music, grab yourself an ice cream, whatever. The point here is, is that don't just let the time or the moment pass without celebrating it. Even if it's just for a few seconds, a few moments, and just recognizing that you just won.