It’s easy to do one thing at a time. You go to the grocery store and pick up all of the items you need for that evening’s dinner. It’s easy on the brain. One meal, one trip.
But doing one thing at a time can wreak havoc on your productivity.
Task batching is simply putting together tasks that are similar to each other and accomplishing them all at the same time. It seems simple. But, it requires planning ahead and, most importantly, it requires tenacity.
The number one deterrent to task batching is impatience. Or, looking at it another way, a lack of tenacity. There is the ever-present temptation to say something like, “That’s enough for now.” The longer you can stave off that temptation, the more time you can save.
How much time, exactly? I’ll tell you.
Let’s say you decide to task batch creating videos for social media. Here is an easy way to break down how much time you will save by task batching.
Time spent creating one video - 5 minutes
Time prepping to create one video - 3 minutes
Total time to create ten videos when not batched together - 80 minutes
Total time to create ten videos when batched together -53 minutes
So, by taking away the prep time for each video, you save almost a half hour of time. Here’s a short video of my talking face saying something similar, but in a specific example:
If you look at the first photo of this email, you’ll see different videos I created for my company’s social media account. on the same section of my camera roll. These all were created between 1:50 pm and 2:18 pm on a Friday. Important point: I was tempted to stop creating videos after the third one.
The fact is, the more tasks you can batch together, the more time you save in the future.
This same concept can be applied to practically any task. Here is a list of a few things you could task batch in 2022:
Paying bills
Grocery shopping
Errands
Calls (sales, personal, etc.)
Social media posts
Checking in with employees
Doctor appointment scheduling
Self-care
Gift purchasing (you could literally do the entire year if finances allow)
Regularly-scheduled email reminders (simply put them in your drafts folder)
The list of tasks that can potentially be batched together is endless. If you’re a teacher, you could collect all of your students’ work and grade all of your papers on, say, Thursday nights. If you’re a freelancer, you could save all of your emails to clients until the last 45 minutes of your day. If you’re Antonio Brown, you can talk smack about your old team on Tuesday mornings and write rap lyrics on Thursday nights.
The point is, the more you batch together, the more you can get done. And the more time you save.
Happy task batching in 2022, friends.
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Have a fantastic and productive week!
Love,
Michelle