by Leo Wiles
17 May 2017
You recently wrote about practical tips for organising multiple projects, but in the blogging world all I hear about is batching. Should I be jumping on the batching bandwagon? M
If you want to become more productive, hell yeah.
Batching is simply choosing a series of similar tasks and carving out a chunk of time in which to do them all in one go. The rationale behind this time management technique is that it increases our focus, which in turn maximises productivity, creativity and shaves wasted time off our workday. It also gives your brain a chance to relax into the flow of working on just one task at a time.
And it works. If you’ve ever been in the middle of writing an article with gusto and stopped to answer the phone or pour a glass of milk for a toddler, you’ll know how hard it can be to re-focus – in fact, even if you resist whatever the distraction is, studies show it can take 10-15 minutes to regain focus. And if you consider all the distractions that come our way every day, those 15 minute blocks of wasted time add up! Ditto all the millions of web browsers you open during the day to do one tiny task – or the multiple times you check your email.
So how do you start batching? It’s a good idea to build it into your weekly schedule. What you need to do is create a list of all the similar tasks you do for your business every month. Do you write similar blogs for a particular client? Or use a certain program or piece of software for multiple clients? It makes sense to group those types of things together and complete them as a ‘block’ of work.
I especially love using this technique for emails. By filtering them by, say, subject, I can quickly see the conversation thread and not waste time trying to find out who said what and where we are up to. I can also just delete the thread and keep the latest which has the entire conversation anyway, thus reducing inbox clutter. And I know Rach and Jonelle like batching social media – it’s so much easier knowing key messages are on track to your audience, and it helps you stick to a strategy or specific ‘themes’ for time-consuming platforms like Instagram, rather than just thinking, ‘Crap I didn’t post today!’ and doing something on the fly.
A good way to batch is by setting a timer or using the Pomodoro technique – this online timer creates blocks of 25 minutes and is perfect for batching.
Do you batch tasks? What are your tips for successful batching?
