I was recently talking with a young woman who just graduated from college and is looking for a job. She’s bright and talented, and wants to do something meaningful with her education and abilities. But she could also use a few bucks for gas.

This month has been hard for me, since I’ve battled two weeks of the flu and am preparing to launch new projects. So I asked her if she would consider being an elf for a few hours. She was gung-ho.

Normally when you think of elves, images of mischievous little people come to mind. But for my purposes, an elf is a person who does little tasks energetically. So we traded — my dollars for her youthful energy doing tasks like vacuuming the steps and cleaning the patio chairs of leaves that have tried to embed themselves during wind storms.

I’m not trying to offload “dirty” jobs. I’m delegating small jobs that could tend to become bigger if I did them. If I were to clean the patio chairs, I’d become distracted by the little rips, the mildew that will need to get cleaned come spring, and so forth  — or else I’d just let the chairs go, figuring they were low on my priority list. My elf merely swept the chairs and was done.

She can drop a book by the library in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, whereas I’m more likely to gang lots of errands together and make too big a job of it. When my elf tidies up the bookcase with DVDs and CDs, it just happens. Whereas I sort them into piles, remembering that I want to lend this one to Sue, and that DVD to Mary. Having an elf saves more time than you’d imagine.

What tasks take you longer than necessary? Maybe cleaning water buckets, which then distracts you to doing other stall maintenance? Maybe it’s sweeping the feed room, because then you get involved in consolidating supplements and other chores, making one simple task complex. Maybe it’s wiping down your tack, which is a different job than a full cleaning.

Unlike myself, my elf has no emotional connection to any of the tasks. Her identity and job description isn’t in question. She just sets to work cheerily and gets it done.

So what if you don’t have the money to hire an elf? Try being your own elf. Put on your elf ears and do the immediate part of the task at hand. Disengage from the extras and pretend you were hired to merely do “x.” Knock it out and move on. You’d be amazed at what an hour of elf time can do.

If you discover that you are a good elf, you might even find that someone nearby needs an hour or two of elf time. Voila. A few extra bucks, and you’ll feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

Either way, don’t let yourself get bogged down. Put a little elf in your step and you’ll be amazed at what you can get done.