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

Fear doesn’t always come in such dramatic forms as ‘My life will be ruined forever’, of course. Some of the fear we experience is the low, grating sense of self-doubt that stands between us and our goals – the fear that we’re just not good enough.

Finally comes level 3, time-blocking your ‘ideal week’. Here, you’re not just planning a single day; you’re planning the entire seven days ahead of you. Ensure that all aspects of your life get the attention they deserve. Identify all the things that are important to you: work, family, hobbies, exercise, relaxation, personal development, etc. Then,

when we’re in a positive mood, we tend to consider a broader range of actions, be more open to new experiences, and better integrate the information we receive. In other words, feeling good boosts our creativity – and our productivity.

Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack

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

‘What would this look like if it were fun?’ has now become a guiding question in my life. And it’s surprisingly easy to draw upon. Think of a task that you don’t want to do right now, and ask what would it look like if it were fun? Could you do it in a different way? Could you add music, or a sense of humour, or get creative? What if you set out to

But how? The answer can be found by studying what specifically elicits dopamine. As one article published by Harvard Medical School puts it, the hormone is activated by ‘sex, shopping, [and] smelling cookies baking in the oven’11 – in other words, by the activities we find fun. So if we want to harness the revolutionary effects of play, our second

Bandura was one of the most influential psychologists in history. That influence was, in large part, down to an idea4 that he introduced in 1977 and one that would make him famous: self-efficacy. Drawing on his research over the previous decade, Bandura argued that it’s not just our abilities that are important in human performance and wellbeing; i

The truth is, everyone is concerned mostly about themselves, and how they’re coming across. They’re not spending much time (if any) thinking about us.