 When you look at your to-do list there may be some things that you are looking forward to doing and That you do well that you that makes a real difference in your life and you or in your work but then there are probably a lot of items on your to-do list that you don't enjoy doing or Really don't make that Much of a difference or if any difference at all But you maybe have gotten someone else said you should do it or you've gotten put your some pressure on yourself so Look at your to-do list with some suspicion Whenever you look at it and here's here are the steps that I recommend you kind of walk through when you're looking at your your list of projects or your list of Tasks that you you think you have to do especially when it comes to your business Here are the words to think about eliminate automate outsource Transform So those are the four questions that I ask myself when I look at my projects list or my to-do list The first question is can I eliminate this task? As I mentioned We tend to put too much pressure on ourselves You might have idea for example You might have some ideas that came to you today like oh I would love to do this or maybe I should do that And then you write it down on your to-do list right and guess what? Your future self now has to contend with what you wrote down on your to-do list today So when you look at your to-do list It's almost like you have to negotiate with your past self the self from a week ago a month ago a year ago That's that thought it was a good idea to do this thing that you've written it down to be done now Well, maybe it's no longer relevant So I really encourage you to do your best to eliminate as many items from your to-do list as possible Because you're probably giving yourself too much pressure you're doing more than you need to do so try to eliminate if possible Now if you cannot eliminate it you think though it really does need to be done then the second question is can you automate it? These days there is especially when it comes to building your business. There are so many tools that software is that people have developed that can Just make your process Take you out of the picture and still get the task done One of the the tools the websites that's amazing that I'm I'm going to start exploring a lot more is Zapier.com Z-A-P-I-E-R.com for example with Zapier. I was able to seamlessly integrate PayPal and MailChimp In a way that's more sophisticated than it could have done otherwise Without knowing how to code right and it's it's just so Zapier.com check it out It integrates a lot of different apps together so that again you can no longer have to do some of the things you used to have to do Manually whether it's from spreadsheet to calendar from this software to that software Zapier.com can do it another competitor to Zapier is IFTTT.com IFTTT.com so check out those two websites for automating Some tasks that you don't love to do and then if you can't automate Can't figure out how to automate it then the next question is can you outsource it? Can you have somebody else who loves doing the task or whose work or job or business is to do that task and Whose specialty is to do it so that you don't have to learn everything under the sun. You don't have to get good at Too many all these different things especially technical types of tasks so outsourcing Different people have you may have different view than I do on it, but I see myself as a global citizen and I think that Outsourcing to a a foreign country. I think is actually a a good thing for the world because it connects the world number one and number two Five dollars an hour here in North America or in Europe or in Australia or you know is is is nothing I mean you can but you can't really live on five dollars an hour here in North America at least and so but in Pakistan and Bangladesh and Parts of India in the Philippines that is a living wage Maybe more than living wage because I was researching the salaries in Pakistan for example and a senior software developer in corporate Pakistan earns between five to eight dollars an hour us dollars and so He or she would probably much rather work for themselves for five dollars an hour than work for work for a big company there that they can't control the kind of work they do and So your dollars make a make a big difference and in terms of outsourcing a couple of websites that I really love to use is Fiverr.com There's two Rs at the end fiverr.com one of a website to find freelancers from all of the world And the other one is Upwork up UP WRK.com so check out those two sites for for outsourcing and If you for some reason can't figure out how to outsource it and you still really need to do that project or task And you need to do it yourself then the final question to ask is how can I transform the task and My dog is just running around crazy here How can I transform the task so that it becomes enjoyable for me to do so that I can bring joy and heart and mindfulness to it I've done other videos in my joyful productivity series About about transforming your your relationship to your work. So I hope this is helpful Look at your project list. Look at your task list and I'll ask yourself. Can I eliminate this? If at all possible because if it's important, it'll come back to me again If I can't eliminate it, can I automate it in some way? And if I cannot automate it can't figure that out Can I outsource it in some way if I can't do that then can I transform it in some way now? If you are a business owner and you would like some coaching on how to do these things This is one of the things I love coaching clients on so you might consider Seeking me out for that kind of service if you're interested, but anyway, if you just run through these questions yourself You will be able to move your Spending of your time and energy towards more of what is truly your true livelihood your joyful productivity