The Three P's of Feel Good Productivity
Make work more productive by making it feel better: play, power, people.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 82%
Ali Abdaal's Feel Good Productivity rests on the thesis that experiencing positive emotions in your work makes you more creative, less stressed and ultimately more productive. Originally exploded into ten factors, then five (power, play, people, progress, purpose), it was simplified to three memorable P's with the others folded in as subheadings. Power combines autonomy and control with a sense of improvement and competence, levelling up at the thing. Play means approaching work in a spirit of play, the lightness that cured Richard Feynman's physics burnout when he watched a wobbling plate in the Cornell cafeteria and followed his curiosity to a Nobel Prize. People is the supportive community around the work. Purpose is deliberately placed last rather than first, because 'start with why' can overwhelm someone in an ordinary job; instead you make the work not suck through power, play and people, and only then ask the purpose question.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal. The three P's are the core framework of Ali Abdaal's book Feel Good Productivity, distilled from an initial list of ten factors down to power, play and people.
Core principles
- 01Feeling good makes you more productive, more creative and less stressed.
- 02Positive emotion, not grim discipline, is the engine of good work.
- 03Simplify to a memorable few: three beats ten.
- 04End with purpose rather than starting with it, so meaning does not overwhelm.
How to run it
- 1
Lead with play
Approach the work in the spirit of play, seeking lightness, curiosity and enjoyment in the act itself. Play is chapter one because feeling good drives productivity.
Pro tip Follow an odd curiosity the way Feynman followed the wobbling plate.
- 2
Build power
Cultivate power: ownership, autonomy and control, plus the sense of improvement and competence that comes from levelling up at the thing.
Pro tip Track your own progress so competence is visible to you.
- 3
Bring in people
Do the work alongside a supportive community of people you like, which amplifies everything else.
- 4
Diagnose the missing P
When work stops feeling good, identify which of play, power or people has gone missing and restore it.
Pro tip Simplicity aids recall; keep it to three, not ten.
- 5
End with purpose
Only after making the work not suck through play, power and people, ask the purpose question and align goals with your core values. If it still is not working, it may be time to quit.
Watch out Starting with why can overwhelm someone in an ordinary, low-meaning job.
In the wild
Post-war, burnt out and grieving his wife, Richard Feynman felt physics had gone meaningless. In the Cornell cafeteria he watched a student throw a plate and noticed the university logo rotating at a different rate to the plate's edge. Following that playful curiosity, he modelled the equations and the work that flowed from it ultimately won him a Nobel Prize; he credited the return of play with curing his burnout.
→ Recovering a sense of play cured burnout and reignited world-class work.
Common mistakes
Relying on discipline as suffering
Framing productivity as 'I'm suffering but it's worth it' is unsustainable; engineering enjoyment works better.
Starting with why
Leading with purpose can overwhelm someone whose job has no obvious meaning; make it not suck first, then ask about purpose.
Is it for you?
Best for
Knowledge workers and creatives who want sustainable output without white-knuckle willpower.
Not ideal for
People whose core problem is a job fundamentally misaligned with their values, where quitting may be the answer.
From the transcript
“the framework that I use is the three P's... power, play, and people.”
“feeling good makes you more productive. Experiencing positive emotions in your work makes you more creative, makes you less stressed.”
“we instead we end with why... once you've incorporated power and play and people into your work, at that point you've done everything you can.”
From the episode
Steven Bartlett: 9 Secret Habits of a Multi-Million Dollar Entrepreneur - Diary of a CEO
Steven Bartlett