Book 2 Post 1

 After reading the first few chapters of Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You but Alli Abdaal, I now have an evolving understanding of the productivity spectrum. The introduction of the book lays out a roadmap for the rest of the book, similar to that of our Expert Articles, where the three parts of the book are differentiated. The first part is about the science behind feel-good productivity and how it can energize you, the second part is about how this philosophy can help you overcome procrastination or other bad habits, and the third part is about how feel-good productivity can sustain us into the long-term future.

My favorite aspect of this book is how the delivery of the philosophy through a combination of not just practical tips but also the stories and experiences that helped the author arrive at this conclusion. The premise of the book is relatively simple in that he believes that positive emotions fuel human flourishing and that feeling good drives success not the other way around. This is contrary to the typical philosophy that commonly circulates saying “ there’s no gain without pain” or “work for the reward” which is more common in scenarios like fitness where training is seen as the pain and being in better shape is the gain. However, the book covers a variety of scenarios where positive emotions play a significant role in determining how successful you are in what you are trying to accomplish despite the typical “pain to gain” narrative.

In part 1 of the book, several of the experiments stood out to me. The study that was most interesting to me was the comparison of real-life play to video games. Mainly this relates to choosing your character games and worlds that you can explore because the main theme is that play reduces stress and curiosity allows us to focus longer. In terms of an open world map, a lot of the messages suggest living as if you were in a video game trying to seek out fun in all places through side-quests. I have already implemented side-quests into my life and they help me accomplish tasks and find fun in doing activities that may not be fun if done otherwise. For example, my side-quest today is studying for a midterm but my side-quest yesterday was dropping off my dry cleaning and tomorrow my side-quest is to find ingredients to cook a good breakfast. I really appreciate the philosophy that the book is helping readers adopt because a more positive way of thinking is helpful for students as we continue taking on more responsibilities.