In this YouTube monologue, George Kao tackles the common problem of having to perform tasks that feel unpleasant or daunting—such as writing from a blank page or making cold outbound sales calls—and offers a systematic approach called the EASE framework to turn these obligations into opportunities for joyful productivity. He introduces the four (or five) letters of the framework: Eliminate (or Experiment), Automate, Share (or delegate), and Enjoy. For each step, he explains practical tactics: eliminating tasks when possible; using AI, especially agentic AI, to automate repetitive or cognitively heavy work by focusing on the desired outcome rather than the process; sharing the workload through outsourcing, coworking, or body‑doubling sessions where partners work together and report progress; and finally, embracing the tasks that cannot be removed or automated—like caretaking—by reframing them as spiritual or purposeful activities that can be infused with joy. Kao also adds a nuance to the first E, suggesting that instead of merely eliminating, one can experiment with alternative pathways to the same goal, especially when traditional methods (e.g., cold calling) feel unpleasant. He illustrates the framework with concrete examples for writing block and outbound sales, demonstrates how AI can generate outlines, act as a brainstorming coach, or draft content, and encourages viewers to comment with their own ideas for making such tasks more enjoyable. The overall message is that by systematically evaluating each task through the EASE lens, individuals can reduce friction, leverage technology and community, and find meaning even in unavoidable work.
Chapters
The question here is, how do we get ourselves to do stuff that we don't wanna do that are helpful for our work, our business? Maybe it's chores at home or whatever. And two examples that were just given to me by the, the question asker is one, writing. Okay? Now, many of us, most of us need to do some kind of writing for our jobs, for our business, right? And the person who asked it said, okay, it's easier when I'm responding to other people. It's much harder when it's a blank page and have to start the process. Okay, so that's, that's one. The second example given was to do sales, to get clients, right? And this person said outbound is really tough, like reaching out cold, especially cold to people that don't know who you are and you're trying to get their attention and get them to consider an offer. Okay, so these are great examples. and, um, I'll, I'll, I'll share some thoughts that hopefully will help you work with joyful productivity. And as always, I'm gonna, before I say anything, I always, I always wanna encourage all of you watching this to comment below on how would you make these activities more joyful if you so-called, if you thought you had to do them. So that's a question, kind of getting your thinking cap on first. All right, so I look forward to seeing the comments below, those of you wanna share anything. Okay, so I bring in, I'd like to bring in for Joyful Productivity, one of the frameworks in Joyful Productivity is EASE, E-A-S-E. Now ease of course is what a lot of us want. We wish our work were easy and fun and everything like that. So these letters mean something and I'll kind of briefly walk through it 'cause I have a whole other in-depth video about this. Okay? E stands for eliminate. A stands for automate. S stands for share or delegate. E stands, and then the final E stands for enjoy. Okay? So let me briefly walk you through this. Whenever there's something I don't wanna do, or, or actually I look at my to-do list and my calendar like every, you know, at least once a month, you know, at least, at least every quarter, but usually once a month, sometimes more often. And I run it through this, this framework. I look at, I look at the task and when I come to a task or a calendar recurring calendar item that makes me go, ah, there's some friction there. It's not something I naturally can't wait to do. Okay. Then I run it through this framework. Can I eliminate it? Is there any way I can just stop doing it and, and what would happen to my life? Okay. If I stop doing it. Okay. If I can't stop doing it, if I have to do it, if it has to be done for whatever reason, cuz it's my job right now or whatever, then I go to the next letter. Can it be automated? E-A-S-E, eliminate, automate, share, enjoy. A is, can I automate it? And these days the answer often is yes. If you learn how to use AI. Okay. Including agentic AI, you can automate a lot of the stuff that you thought you had to do. Look it up. Ask AI, hey, get smart with me about how can we possibly automate this task? This is, and, and, and don't tell the AI that the actual, I first need to pick up the phone and then I need to dial these numbers. No. Tell it what the goal is, what the result is, because the AI will figure out the pathway there. Okay. So automate. The third one is if you, if you, if you can't automate it, you just, it's just, it needs to be done by a human. Okay? You, you talk to the AI, you've had enough of a conversation, try at least half an hour conversation, and you really can't figure out how to do it just with current AI tools, then you have to have a human do it. Then the question is share, S, share. Can you share that work with somebody else? Can someone else help you to do it? Sometimes this means paying somebody, right? Outsourcing. Sometimes this means, you know, there's a teammate who's willing to do some of that work or to do it with you. Someone else mentioned in the chat, um, coworking, you know, body doubling where it's like, all right, we're gonna do this thing. Let's get, let's get on a Zoom call and just for the hour, for the half hour, we're both gonna do this task. When you tell me what, what thing you're gonna do that you, you're procrastinating on, and I'll tell you what thing I'm gonna do. And then by the end of the half hour, by the end of the hour, we're gonna share, share with each other what we did. Okay? So S is share, share the work with someone. If you can pay someone to do it, great. If not, share the work in some way, including coworking. And finally, E, the, the last E is if you can't autom— if you can't eliminate it, you cannot automate it, you, you don't know how to share the work, then it's really left to you to do. Then you have to practice joyful productivity in the purest form. Which is to say, for whatever reason, you know, God has given me this task for me to do. This is in my life plan at this time in my life. I am tasked with doing this. I mean, this is real. A lot of us are tasked with caretaking at some point in our life, caretaking either for a young person, a child, baby, or caretaking for an elderly person, or caretaking for a neighbor or for a friend or for one's partner, whatever, right? Like caretaking is an example of something that you shouldn't, you can't eliminate because the person needs you. You can't automate yet. Maybe one day we'll have home bots that can do some caretaking. You can probably share some of the work of caretaking. Actually, some of you probably need to do that. And then, but finally, you have to do some of the caretaking. Then it's left to you. It's a spiritual task. At that point to say, how can I breathe spirit and connect with divine presence and let God— because you, your hands are God's hands, your words are God's words, your legs are God's legs, and God is saying, can you represent me today in that, in that role? That's in joy. Because God is joyful. And bring— how do you bring joy into the caretaking, into the outbound call, into the whatever it is, if you, if you can't? So that's that. Um, I, I'll ask— I'll add one more nuance to this that I didn't even talk about in the Ease video, which is the first E. Instead of eliminate, you might also consider experiment. Experiment, meaning, for example, I'll give you the examples of the, the outbound call, right? The outbound calls, nobody wants to do it. Very, even very few salespeople like doing outbound calls or outbound direct messages because people just mark you as spam and then you end up not being able to reach people anyway, or you call and people hang up on you. It's just not pleasant. Okay? So then the ways experiment, the question is, hmm, to get to that goal, and this is maybe AI related to get to that goal, what else could I do to get to that goal other than what people tell me I should be doing, which is outbound calls? Gosh, the goal is not to pick up the phone and bother people who don't know you. That's not the goal, right? The goal is to get people interested in what you offer. So what might be other ways of getting people interested besides cold calling, right? And there are so many ideas, and I'm sure as a salesperson you've already considered ideas, But it's always worth looking again. What are the current best practices that are the best effective alternatives to cold calling? And of course, AI is great to talk to about these kinds of things. So that's, that's the first letter. It can be instead of eliminate, experiment with different pathways to the goal you're trying to reach. So that's essentially how I think about things I don't wanna do. Or do you want to do less? And I run through this framework. With the example of writing, blank paper, everybody, most people, many people have that blank paper syndrome of, oh God, I got to start writing something. So instead, these days, of course, I work with AI. It's, you know, the person asks to say, oh, it's, I'm much better when I'm in conversation with somebody else. Experiment, right? So there are different ways of getting to a written piece that you initiate. It's not just you facing a blank screen. That's only one way. There's many other ways, including, all right, I'm gonna talk to AI about, about this, and then the AI is gonna produce an outline, or the AI is gonna just write the thing after I have a stream of consciousness conversation with the AI about the idea. I'm just gonna say, hey, AI, be encouraging. You know, wait for my ideas. Don't give me any ideas. Be a coach for me for brainstorming. Don't give me ideas, be encouraging and just keep telling me to give you another idea, another idea, another nuance, another story, another objection, another, you know, pitfall, a myth as part of this topic, whatever. Just give me all of it, okay? Encourage me to share whatever I can. And then after I share, I'll ask you to put together a blog post, an article, a sales page or whatever. All right, got it? Okay, let's get going, right? And then you start and then it's a, back and forth. Or of course, you could do it with a human. You could talk with a friend, colleague, team member to say, hey, do me a favor. Can you do me a favor? Let's have a 15-minute conversation where you ask me about this topic because I'm feeling stuck about just the blank page syndrome, right? And for 15 minutes, I'm happy to do it with you as well, right? Just swap that time. So anyway, couple of ideas. I really look forward to hearing if any of these resonate with you and if you have any other ideas as well below.
