Save Time and Energy by Batching

Time is our most precious resource, and we don’t get to spend it twice. Life is busy and it’s too easy to get bogged down in day-to-day tasks. Before you know it, it’s the end of the day and you’re no further forward than when you started it - despite your best intentions!

Batching is a way of being super productive and simply doing similar tasks together. It will save you a serious amount of time and energy, freeing you up for the more important or fun things, knowing that you’re sorted.

Anything that frees up time is worth doing in my book, and batching is one of the best ways to do this. I’m still a work in progress and I’ve gotten good at it in some areas, but there’s room for improvement in others.

3 Advantages of Batching

#1 When you stop and start different tasks there is a time delay between them. Whether it’s getting your brain in gear or logging into different websites, there is a time cost. If you reduce the number of times you move between one thing and another, it will add up significantly during the day.

#2 It is easier to get into the flow of jobs when you’re focusing on one thing. You won’t have to work out where you got to or try to remember what to do next because you are in the right zone for the task at hand.

If you want to find out more about how much time is wasted when you jump around from one task and another and stop and start tasks, check out ‘The One Thing’ by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan – it’s a brilliant eye-opener of a book!

#3 Batching will help you to clear the tasks that can often take days or weeks to get around to. Especially those tasks that you procrastinate around doing (like your accounts!!??) It’s a great way to give you the headspace taken up by having the unfinished to-do list hanging over you.

Batch at Work and Home

Don’t limit batching to just work, by batching some of your home activities and chores, you can save even more time. It’s a way of working efficiently in every area to free time up for the things you’d rather be doing.

7 Batching Ideas

#1 Emails – only check your emails once (or twice) a day, don’t dip in and out of them as soon as you see the little notification pop up. If you don’t trust yourself to not look, turn off your notifications or close the programme down.

#2 Clients – book your client appointments or calls together so you can get into the ‘client zone’ fully. When I worked as a practitioner, I had set days for client calls which worked brilliantly and meant I had space in my diary for projects and working on my business.

#3 Marketing – whether you produce blogs, podcasts, videos – the more you can do these together, the better. Especially if you have the equipment to set up or want to do your hair and makeup before appearing on video, batching will be a huge time saver. Imagine how relieved you will feel if you have a month’s content ready and scheduled to go out.

#4 Social media – create your posts for the week (or month) in one go and schedule them to automate their delivery. You will still need to check them and respond to any comments etc. but you can do this a couple of times a day. And you can always add in a spontaneous post when you feel like it.

#5 Administration – do all your accounts and other similar administrative tasks together. This way they won’t interfere with your day-to-day work. You’ll feel very happy with yourself when you’re not scrabbling around at the last minute for information to complete your tax return.

#6 Chores and errands – rather than doing jobs as you go, batch similar chores together so you do them in one go. The same goes for running errands, how can you batch trips so you only go out once? I’m better at this since moving to a rural area - it’s 5 miles to our local town so I make the most of each trip by shopping, getting my hair cut, filling the car up, etc. in one outing.

#7 Dinners – if you’re cooking a meal, make extra portions and freeze them so you have your own healthy ready meals. And create a meal plan at the start of the week so you’re not thinking about what you eat each day. It will save you decision time and you’ll have a shopping list ready.

How to Make Batching Work for You

Batching requires some organising and you need to find a way of batching tasks that works for you. Here are a few suggestions for getting started:

• Work out which tasks you’re going to batch and roughly how much time you’ll need for each.
• Remove all other distractions while you're working on these tasks (unless it’s something like having music on to keep you motivated while you do the housework). Make sure you’re able to use your time productively and don’t get side-tracked.
• Plan your batching in the way that works best for you and commit to it by booking the time in your diary or making it part of your routine.

Batching is a huge time saver, and it helps me to keep things working, even when life throws me a curveball. Having a month’s blog posts scheduled when I had my hip operation took the pressure off me and I didn’t have the stress of the weekly blog hanging over me. What do you batch to save time?

If you're struggling with your marketing, it's time to get help. Book a call with me and let's chat about what's happening in your business, and I'll help you figure out your next steps.