3 Ways to Maintain Relational Energy for Better Productivity Based on Ali Abdaal
Unlock your energy to keep you on track
One night, I congratulated my close friend on her birthday. In appreciation, she invited me and our mutual friends to a cafe, where she treated us. The gathering lasted until almost midnight. However, the interaction left me feeling drained and exhausted.
Conversely, whenever I have tasks to complete and work with certain friends, I feel inspired and uplifted. It’s as if their energy and enthusiasm linger on, boosting my spirits for a while.
The quality of our connections with people can significantly impact our mood and productivity levels. While we may possess a strong intrinsic motivation to achieve our goals, it is often affected by extrinsic sources such as friends, colleagues, and mentors.
In Ali Abdaal’s book ‘Feel Good Productivity,’ I found how important rational energy is to boost our productivity and keep us on track.
Here, we explore various ways to incorporate it into your everyday life.
1. Find Someone to Collaborate with
When Ali worked in writing his book ‘Feel-Good Productivity,’ he joined the remote Writers’ Hour group. Every weekday, four times a day, the group gathers on Zoom video call. Then, for 50 minutes people in the group started working on different things.
This session helped him a lot to gain focus and stay energized during the writing process.
The practical element to implement this way is:
Seek your friend or online group to be your teamwork (the task doesn’t have to be the same).
This way can give a sense of teamwork and when others are in trouble. You wanna help them out and so forth.
The benefits also happened to me. When I want to commit to something hard for a month. Looking back on my past experiences, I tended to break my commitment just after the first 10 days. However, I tried to seek a friend who I could work with. We have to report to each other each day about our progress. This method could energize me, even if I’m a bit sick and sluggish to work on.
2. Helping Others
By the time my English speaking was A2 level, I offered my friend who wanted to take the IELTS test to be her speaking partner. Without a doubt, we connected since then. Doing the simulation speaking test. I was her examiner and she trained me to answer questions well. Alongside I also learned about many stuff, specifically speaking IELTS.
I know how difficult finding a speaking partner, that’s why I gave my friend the offer.
Helping others not only keeps me on track, but offers a powerful tool for growth, social change, and feel-good productivity as Ali Abdaal mentioned in his book.
According to Neuroscience helping others could release oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. These feel-good hormones have the effect of boosting our mood and reducing stress.
3. Doing Kindness at Random People
Another way to make ourselves feel good is to act of kindness towards random people. Whether it’s offering your friends to hang out when they get bored, holding the door open for a stranger, or making a colleague a drink. Incorporating these into our daily can give us a feel-good sensation.
Ask yourself, what kind of random act you can do for people to make you a good every day?
Engaging in relational energy is beneficial to getting job satisfaction, and widening connections with others, particularly achieving success.
