Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You

Life is stressful. Play makes it fun. Play is our first energiser. Life is stressful. Play makes it fun. If we can integrate the spirit of play into our lives, we’ll feel better – and do more too.

Imagine what your life would look like if you received five proverbial points for failing, rather than losing five like in the experiment. Imagine what would happen if people cheered you on for a little stumble rather than humiliated you. Imagine how you’d approach things if you treated them as experiments, where failure would be just as valuable a

But the truth is, structure gives you more freedom, not less. By carving out specific chunks of time for different activities, you’re ensuring that you have time for everything that’s important to you: work, hobbies, relaxation, relationships. You’re not just reacting to whatever comes up or gets thrown at you during the day. Instead, you’re design

Mochary calls his principle the ‘bias to action’. He recognises that the time spent together with clients is precious (for both him and them), and merely contemplating deep thoughts without turning them into actionable steps would be a waste. We need clear, concrete steps to take, rather than distant, abstract goals. Otherwise we might do nothing a

the only type of extrinsic motivation that corresponded with greater happiness was identified motivation. In other words, it was the hikers who motivated themselves by aligning their actions with what they truly valued who not only completed the trail – but also felt happiest at the end of it. Sheldon didn’t use the term, but you might say that the

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

If you want to properly recharge, you need to maintain areas of your life in which personal advancement doesn’t feature at all.

My guitar was hidden away behind my bookshelf in the corner of the room to the point that I almost never saw it. It was only when I read James Clear’s book Atomic Habits that I realised the obvious solution: put the guitar in the middle of the living room. Suddenly, picking up the guitar became dramatically easier. We can think of actions like this

This is a well-studied phenomenon; one that scientists call ‘uncertainty paralysis’