The EASE Productivity Framework
Not everything on your to-do list is meant to be done by you.
As you look at each task, does it fit all 3 criteria?
1. Enjoyment: You enjoy doing it, or wish to.
2. Expertise: You are an expert at it, or wish to become one.
3. Effect: The results of the task are more worthwhile than other tasks you could do.
If it passes all 3 checks, then the task is worth your time and attention!
If it doesn’t pass all 3 checks, then I recommend using the EASE process:
Eliminate
Automate
Share
En-Joy
I’ll explain each.
(This used to be called EADA, where “share” was “delegate”, and “en-joy” was “appreciate”)
Eliminate
You’re reading an article about productivity, so you’re more conscientious than most people! This means you tend to carry a lot on your shoulders.
You have many more items on your to-do list than you have time for…
For your mental health — and the use of your time for what’s truly worthwhile — it is an essential practice to continually eliminate tasks from your list.
Maybe you fear erasing the task from your to-do list, wondering “what if I need this later?”
This is what leads to clutter and overwhelm…
Instead, just get rid of it. Practice the skill of simplifying.
When you feel the fear of missing out or losing a potential opportunity, take a pause: do whatever practice helps you to reconnect with your inner source of abundance.
Observe that you actually need to do relatively little, to be fine.
If you are still hesitating to delete a task, quickly run it through the three criteria above: Enjoyment? Expertise? Effect? It must be a strong “Yes,” for all three, to stay on your list.
One option is to remove the due date, thereby transferring the task to a “someday / maybe” pile so that it doesn’t keep bugging you.
If you see a task appear again and again — and it doesn’t meet the Enjoy, Expert, Effect criteria — then it’s time to either Automate or Share it.
Automate
Almost all of the “work” you see today will become automated eventually. Ai is becoming astonishingly capable, faster than had been predicted.
Resistance is… unnecessary!
I believe that the purpose of life has something to do with growing in love and wisdom.
We humans are being called to ever higher levels of work — to bring more creativity, caring, consciousness into our work than machines can.
It’s time to stop doing tasks that don’t meet your Enjoy, Expert, Effect criteria. If the task keeps coming up, and you cannot eliminate it, find a way to automate it.
A few examples:
- Instead of back and forth emails for scheduling, I use the Scheduling feature of Simplero.
- Instead of manual data entry, I use Zapier.
- Instead of manually moving newsletters into “read later,” I use gmail’s filters.
If you don’t have know to automate something, and you can’t eliminate it, then move onto the next step of sharing it.
Share
Your vision for your work is likely bigger than your current capacity. If it’s an important task (and shouldn’t be eliminated) and you don’t know how to automate it, then consider sharing it with another human to do.
To vet your own assistants and freelancers, there are two websites I recommend getting familiar with:
www.Fiverr.com — Hire a freelancer to do your graphic design, website creation / management, Internet research, copywriting/editing, audio or video editing, spreadsheet improvement, transcription, all kinds of technological troubleshooting, and many other virtual tasks. For example, I used Fiverr to get book cover designs, convert my book to Kindle version and format it for paperback publishing, and edit/master my audiobook.
www.Upwork.com — A searchable directory of millions of freelancers that can do all kinds of things for your business. A couple of examples of my successful hires: researching best places to live in Mexico; tax prep and filing that is affordable, accurate, and fast.
The sky’s the limit as to what you can find on Fiverr and Upwork.
What about the low fees? Is it unethical? I’ll let you decide:
As of 2024, a software engineer in the Philippines, or Pakistan, both earn $5 to $8 USD per hour.
If you could pay them $15/hour, allowing them to work as a freelancer, it’s a better lifestyle for them. Your money makes a much bigger difference in their life, compared to paying someone in a first world country.
A couple of helpful notes about outsourcing:
- Some of the people you hire will want to do more work for you than your business actually needs. If you hire them by the hour, they are incentivized in that way. Be smart and only outsource the tasks that are truly productive. You may want to check in with a business-savvy colleague or a coach before you spend money outsourcing a task or project.
- Once you’ve determined tasks that are truly productive to outsource, then hire quickly. Don’t get bogged down trying to pick the perfect person. It’s almost impossible to know in advance, unless they have consistently bad reviews. I’ve worked with some of the best freelancers who had no reviews, so don’t be afraid to give someone new a try. Hire quickly, but here’s the next key…
- Give a small task first, and if they do well, a slightly bigger task, and then increase your trust in them in that way.
- If at any point (including the small task) there’s a doubt in your mind they’re the right person, it’s best to quickly end the contract/project with them as appropriate, and go onto trying the next freelancer. This is why you should try out a small task with them first.
- Often, for an important project, I will hire several freelancers to do the same small task, to see which one I’ll give the next bigger task to.
Start with hiring people for a few hours a month, then as you improve your ability to hire and manage (and let go, if needed), work up to outsourcing a few hours per week of tasks, then more.
En-joy
Another way to filter out things you really shouldn’t be doing is to ask:
“What tasks am I resentful about?”
Make a list of such tasks.
Eliminate them.
If you must keep the task, can you Automate it?
If you can’t, then can you Share it?
If you can’t, then the only thing left is to En-joy it.
Any task, any moment contains the opportunity for meaning, joy, and fulfillment. It’s a muscle to develop. It’s a spiritual practice.
Do your inner work, or work with a coach, to make work something you can truly enjoy. Any task can be made enjoyable if we are willing to open up to that possibility.
The world will be a better place if we can each spend our energy doing the things we enjoy, want to be expert at, and are truly effective uses of our time!
I wish you the increasing ability to create grounded ease in your work life, as you practice the EASE productivity framework.
