I’ll admit it—I didn’t expect to love this book. But Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal completely surprised me, and today, I’m breaking down why.

As a time management and productivity expert, I’ve read a lot of productivity books. And let’s be honest—most of them are written with men in mind, filled with rigid routines and advice that simply doesn’t work for women juggling careers, families, and everything in between. I went into this book skeptical, but what I found was a refreshing, realistic take on productivity that actually fits real life—especially if you struggle with procrastination, burnout, or feeling disconnected from how you spend your time.

In This Episode, We’ll Explore:

• The three-part framework of Feel Good Productivity and how it applies to women
• Why traditional productivity advice often fails for women (and how this book is different)
• My favorite takeaways and actionable tips for balancing productivity with real life
• Who I think should absolutely read this—and who might not need to

If you’ve ever felt like productivity books don’t take into account the mental load, caregiving, or constant demands on your time, this episode will show you a new way to think about productivity—one that prioritizes joy, energy, and real progress.

Mentioned in the episode:

• Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You: www.rb.gy/2izdlh
• Want to see more of my favorite books? Browse my Amazon recommendations: MeganSumrell.com/shop

Listen to the episode here!

Or watch the episode here!

I’d be honored and grateful if you would head over to iTunes to leave a review and let other female entrepreneurs know what you learned! While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss an episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] All right. I'll admit it. I did not expect to love this book, but Ali Abdaal's feel good productivity completely surprised me. And I can't wait to share with you why it might just change your relationship with productivity as well.

[00:00:19] All right, friends, welcome back to the work life harmony podcast. Today I'm going to be sharing My thoughts and kind of a breakdown on the book called Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal. But before we jump in, I want to let you know, you can always browse any of my personal book recommendations on all things, time management, organization, productivity, and planning in my Amazon shop.

[00:00:41] And the quickest way to find that, if you head over to my website, MeganSarmal. com on the top, there's a shop link. And when you click on that, you'll see, there's a, An option there for Amazon recommendations. So that's a great place to kind of always check out with what books I am currently recommending.

[00:00:56] So let's dive into this book here. Now, if you're watching the video, instead of just listening, you may notice my eyes shifting a little bit because I wrote a lot of notes about this and it's not something I'm able to just remember, and I didn't want to miss any of the key points. Now I'm going to take full responsibility for saying, I went into reading this book.

[00:01:17] expecting to be annoyed by it. I hate to admit it, but that's the truth. Now, I'm going to tell you why I expected this. I have yet to read a book written about, productivity that is in the title of this book. It's called feel good productivity. I have yet to read a book written about productivity with a male author.

[00:01:38] And at the time he wrote this book also unmarried without young kids and all of that. where I have not left being annoyed because typically what I read when I'm reading these types of books is the same kind of advice over and over again, where they're talking about, you know, the key to productivity is all about waking up early and doing that meditation and journaling and yoga.

[00:02:00] And then having that time with your brain dump and don't forget about the circling your top. three priorities for the day, right? And they're building out all this structure and now you're going to create what's called your perfect day. Then you're going to create your perfect week and they completely miss the boat on reality, right?

[00:02:16] On real life, especially for women that are serving as caregivers. So I went in assuming this was going to be another one of those things and I was expecting to. not really like the book. And man, what I found was a joyful surprise. I love this book and I absolutely believe everyone should read it. Now, especially, I especially recommend this book for anyone that feels that they struggle with procrastination.

[00:02:50] Right. If you're someone that has a habit of procrastination, if you are someone that maybe just feels disconnected with how you're spending your time, it's not bringing you joy, right? I've shared my personal story of the day. Someone asked me, what do you do for fun? And I didn't have an answer, right? If you find yourself.

[00:03:07] there. Or if you find yourself not able to answer the question, do you have like a goal or a project or something important to you that you're working on right now? And how's that going? So if you're struggling in any of those areas, I think you're going to find this book fantastic. what I'm going to do here on this episode, I'm just going to break down kind of what to expect in the book.

[00:03:28] I'd love to highlight some things that I thought were really, really awesome about it as well. the book is divided into three different parts and part one is called Energize. Part two is called unblock and part three is called sustain. All right. And then there's a great wrap up. And I, one of the quotes he shared at the end was like a perfect way to wrap things up.

[00:03:51] So in part one again, this is called energize and he breaks this down into three things, play. Power and people and the part, the kind of whole energy here in part one is understanding the importance of actually enjoying your life, enjoying how you're spending your time and he kicks it off very early on by saying that feeling good.

[00:04:16] is what leads to success, not the other way around. And many of us have that backwards, right? We think, well, if I just get here, I'll be happy. If I just, that will make it better. If I just wait five more years, right? We're always kind of waiting for that future pacing thing to actually feel good instead of understanding it really is the.

[00:04:35] The flip is true, right? If we're feeling good, that is going to lead to greater success. And he walks through the importance of adding fun into everyday life. Now I, you know, I'm not going to sit here for three hours and regurgitate the book to you, but I will tell you this. He gives some. Very with every single tip that he shares, he gives you app like actionable strategies that you can use to implement this.

[00:04:58] So if you are finding that the day to day in your life is just I mean, guys, we all have stuff we don't like doing, right? I don't like doing the laundry, but there's tips that he shares in this book that I'm like, yeah, okay. I could, I could implement some of these to make some of the things I currently don't enjoy.

[00:05:16] Be more fun. So I love that he really talks about the importance of bringing fun and play back into our lives, regardless of what we're doing. Then he starts talking about that second P in this energize is power. At first I was like, ooh, what direction are we going to go in here if we're talking about power?

[00:05:36] But in this, he's talking about Confidence, right? We can be a lot more energized with the things that we feel confident about, right? And so he gives some amazing strategies in here that you can implement to start to feel more confident in yourself in the things that you're doing. Even if you've been given a task that you don't even know how to do, right?

[00:06:02] There are ways that we can apply some techniques to bring more confidence into our lives. And then the third part of Energize was people and just really emphasizing the power that comes from the people that you surround yourself with, right? So even just kind of kicking off the book with this part one of the importance of energizing, right?

[00:06:24] Adding more play this idea of power and self confidence in people, how that can really transform our lives. And when we're transforming our lives, we are transforming our output, Or productivity. Now, the second part of this book part two is one where I know a lot of the women that I work with, this part two is going to really be a blessing for you.

[00:06:47] And this is where he's really tackling procrastination. So part two was called unblock and the three sections in here are seeking clarity, finding courage, and then getting started. And he kind of kicks off the conversation, which I thought was really important of saying, you know, most.

[00:07:09] people, and I agree with this, when they're talking about procrastination, they are leaning on the symptoms of it, right? What does, what does the behavior of procrastination look like? And so they're like, okay, well, let me give you tips and strategies on tackling the symptoms instead of looking at the root cause of the procrastination.

[00:07:31] Ali actually. Was a doctor so he shares his personal story in the book as well. So I love that he kind of used that analogy he then spends this part two Talking about what are the typical things that cause us to procrastinate and how do we treat? Those. the first chapter in this section is called seeking clarity, which is all around helping to understand for a lot of people, procrastination can be caused by uncertainty, right?

[00:08:02] You've got this big thing that you're wanting to do. Maybe you yourself are wanting to go write a book like he did. And you're like, I don't. I don't know how to do this, right? I have a lot of uncertainty around this. I've never written a book before. And so he gives actionable strategies that you can put in place to help get the clarity to support getting you in to action.

[00:08:23] another part of this section that I think was great, and I've, I've done podcast episodes on why I don't like SMART goals. I'm sure you've all heard of the acronym. It's been around forever, around a good, good goal is one that's a smart goal. And it never sits well with me. He presents a new acronym, which is NICE.

[00:08:41] He said, no, you need a NICE goal. And what those letters stand for is there needs to be a near term component of this goal. It needs to be input based. It needs to be controllable, meaning there's activities you yourself have complete control of that, you know, you can go put into place and it needs to be energizing, right?

[00:09:05] And what I love about that is if you've ever been to any of my goal setting workshops, you'll see it aligns like. Really, really well with the want to action planner worksheet that I share with my students all of the time. And then he does take a small little bit in this chapter to give suggestions on like how to get into action in terms of like setting yourself up with a plan.

[00:09:30] He shares one of my favorite Eisenhower quotes, which is this, no battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won. I've always loved that quote. Now the only thing that he mentions in this that I was like, uh, uh, was the idea of working towards creating an ideal week. I'm personally not a proponent of it just because the women that I serve don't typically live lives that lend themselves to an ideal week, but I will tell you this, it's the first time I've seen it talked about in a realistic digestible way.

[00:10:04] So even with that, I gotta go. All right. Fair. Now the second part in this unblock, so first again, we were talking about that first blocker causing procrastination is a feeling of uncertainty. The second one he tackles is all about fear. And from most of the women that I work with fear is probably the 60 percent reason why they are not starting on the thing that they are wanting to do.

[00:10:29] And in here he talks a lot more about self confidence and he gave an equation that I think is a fantastic way to look at it. self confidence equals the perception of your ability. Minus the perception of standards, which is basically just saying, if you believe that the skills you have are greater than what is required to do something, you're going to feel really confident, right?

[00:10:58] But if you believe Skills required to do something are, are higher than what you have. You're gonna be lacking self-confidence and we start to doubt ourselves, right? So he then breaks down a bunch of tips and strategies that you can use if you struggle with this to help you understand the root cause of the fear, reduce it, and then overcome it And again, I can't emphasize enough why I think this book is so great is he gives you actionable strategies you can put in place to do those things. Now, the third part with this procrastination is, he calls this chapter getting started. And it's like the third blocker is just inertia, right? Meaning sometimes just taking that first step is really, really hard, right?

[00:11:40] An object in motion tends to stay in motion, an object at rest tends to stay at rest. So in here, he gives again, great strategies to help you get into motion. the final section of the book part three is called sustain and I loved this and this is all about burnout right because burnout is a absolute detriment to productivity and so in this section he breaks it down into again another set of three conserving, Recharging and aligning.

[00:12:09] And so he kind of shares the first reason people tend to burn out is just over exertion, right? You're doing too much. You know, I used to do longer distance running. I don't do that anymore. If I went out and tried to run a half marathon, I would over exert myself. And so he talks about the importance of doing less.

[00:12:27] And the thing I really love here is this emphasis of treating breaks as mandatory. Instead of as rewards, and I see women do this all the time. Okay, once I do this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, then I'll treat myself with a break. Instead of saying, no, taking breaks is how I take care of myself. To be able to stay in a steady state.

[00:12:54] And so I love that he is calling that out and saying breaks should not be a reward. This aligns really well with some previous podcast episodes I've shared on, you know, what I call about the, the three types of productivity being active productivity passive productivity and restorative productivity.

[00:13:16] And so this idea of taking breaks really aligns well the way he talks about it with my definition of passive productivity. Now the second part of this is recharge, where he's talking about the second form of burnout is coming because you simply are not getting enough rest. There's a difference between taking breaks and rest, and this really aligns with what I call that restorative.

[00:13:40] Productivity. he gives great tips here and also shares examples, scientific based examples of the importance of bringing nature into your life and give some tips of even if you can't get outside, how can you bring that back into your life, which was nothing I had read about before.

[00:13:57] So that was really awesome for me to learn about. And then the third part here on avoiding burnout is that chapter was called a line. And what he's sharing here is really, and ladies, this is, I'm speaking to you, I see it time and time again, where there's a complete disconnect between the goals that you're working towards.

[00:14:19] And what, what I just always refer to as, as your core values as to what's important to you. Right. And this is why when I, when I run my annual Planapalooza event every October, we start with, when we're looking at our next year, the very first exercise I do with everyone is digging into understanding what are your core values, right?

[00:14:42] We have to start from that. We don't start with setting goals because then we find ourselves getting shitted into things, whether from external or internal reasons, right? And then we wonder why it's kind of lackluster on what we're working on. Well, it's because it's not aligned to what's actually important.

[00:15:03] So this is why I love that he is bringing up that this is a real thing that's going to prevent you from making Progress, right? Or just having you feeling burnt out because you're spending your time on things that aren't in alignment of what's important to you. Now he, he wraps up the book in a way that to me, I was like, and thank you for just putting a cherry on the top of that Sunday for me.

[00:15:29] If you are someone that has been through my top program, if you know my time management framework system, you know that yes, it is in some ways. It's prescriptive and that there are certain step by step things that you can use. But it also has a ton of flexibility in terms of, you know, finding the right tool for you, finding the right rhythms in terms of, you know, do you prefer to do some of this stuff on a weekly basis versus daily?

[00:15:54] What time of the week is best for certain activities, all of that. So while it has the structure, it still has the freedom for you to implement it in the Ways and tools that support your life. And so when he was closing up his book here, he flat out says, the intent for you is to use this book in such a way that you test out the different methods that I'm giving you and give yourself permission and freedom to see what works.

[00:16:25] He's never saying, this is what you have to do in order to be productive or in order to have. Feel good productivity. And one of the kind of quotes that he puts in at the end, and I'm going to do a direct quote here. He says, don't rote learn your way to feel good productivity, experiment your way. And I absolutely love that.

[00:16:49] So if you are looking for actionable items that can really help you get in alignment with what's important in my life. Why do I maybe struggle with a habit of procrastination, right? Maybe, like, why am I just not, I'm kind of in that meh place. If you're stuck in a, in a place of life right now where you keep thinking, Oh, well, I'll just next year, you know, maybe next year is when I'll be able to bring some of that fun back in, or this next stage of life is when I can start having fun again.

[00:17:21] If you feel like that joy is, is gone, and believe me, I was there. Many years ago, if you're just putting off getting started on stuff and you, you're someone that labels yourself as a procrastinator, which you should never do. Procrastination is just an activity. It's not who you are. Or if you're just kind of feeling burnt out, I would 100 percent recommend that you go grab the feel good productivity book here.

[00:17:48] Now I tend to, I absorb a lot of books. It's through Audible. I think it'd be fine, but I would really encourage you to get the physical book because I believe you're going to want to go back. I've got mine earmarked and highlighted and it's one I know I'm going to want to go back and reference quite a bit.

[00:18:02] So, Ali, if you ever listened to this, thank you for a fantastic book. It is one I will be sharing out often.