Batching - What Is It and Why Should You Be Doing It?
Productivity is something a business owner should continuously be measuring. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tasks staring back at you from your never-ending “to-do” list, there is still hope.
What if you could free up more time for revenue-generating activities or personal activities without sacrificing your workload? Get the most out of your daily workload without compromising your quality of work by batching. Batching is a strategy that is highly effective in combating a waning productivity level.
What is batching?
Let’s face it, as business owners, we are constantly shifting our attention to multiple tasks throughout the workday. If you struggle with continually shifting back and forth between responding to emails, drafting an invoice, and looking at social media, batching is a really great way to zero in on one task at a time and take back your focus.
Batching is a form of time management that allows you to maximize focus. It is a process where you collect all of your similar tasks for a given time period (day, week, month, etc.) and complete them all at once. It is an incredibly efficient way to manage your time, allowing you to devote dedicated time to working on individual projects without interruption. Additionally, batching helps streamline the content creation process and optimizes workflow.
Why should you implement batching?
Batching is an amazing way to increase productivity, maintain focus, and pay attention to details. Rather than combining tasks and spreading your energy out over multiple projects, batching allows you to make headway into one task for a set amount of time. This eliminates any time sucked up by context switching and the onset of distractions that can come from quickly jumping from one subject to another.
By batching content together and committing yourself to finish one batch before starting on the next, you're setting yourself up for success by allowing yourself enough uninterrupted concentration and mental energy to get through the batch without feeling scattered or overwhelmed. It's an effective way to power through your work while maintaining quality output! By making batching a priority, you can complete tasks more efficiently while also honoring yourself. You can take breaks between batches and streamline your daily routine.
Amazing multitasking abilities may seem like a superpower, but it is actually harmful to your overall success. Multitasking is a productivity killer. It leads to fatigue and stress which ultimately increases the risk of burnout. According to the Harvard Business Review, productivity goes down by 40% when we attempt to focus on several things at once. That’s not a small number!
Getting Started with Batching
Taking control of how you spend your time is a game changer. The key to getting started is to determine what tasks you need to complete. Try to find related tasks that could be done one after the other - there is no limit to how many you can put together in each batch. Just recognize how long you can realistically spend on each task. And don’t forget to factor in breaks as needed; we all need to rest sometimes before getting back to the next project.
Make sure to:
Set clear goals
Use the right tools for tracking (such as a project management system - we love Asana!)
Eliminate any outside distractions
Let your team know (so no one interrupts you!)
If you want to be more productive in your business, batching is a great strategy to consider. When you batch similar tasks together, you can maximize your focus and get more done in less time. Implementing this time management technique can be a game changer for your business productivity. If you are unsure what you can batch in your business, reach out.
Our discovery session is designed to help you see your business on a grand scale. This means you can determine which tasks you should continue working on while outsourcing other tasks that only slow you down. Schedule a call today and let’s discuss how a virtual executive assistant can help you better batch your tasks.
Happy batching!
