Batching, My Best Productivity Tip
Do you really want to increase your productivity and get more done in a day, week, or even a year?
For this blog post in video form, please head to my YouTube channel or check the bottom of this post.
Are you stuck on how to be more productive and eager to get more done in less time? Are you sometimes losing focus going from task to task? Keep reading this post for my number one productivity tip!
If you really want to increase your productivity and get more done in a day, a week, or even a year, by the end of this post you will have an easy tip you can use right away. I have shared this tip with friends, coworkers, and clients and all have been so happy with the results. Many say they are more even more creative too! This trick also helped me write my book.
Let’s get productive!
What is batching?
Batching is grouping like activities together and getting them done in one scheduled block of time
Examples
This tip is best illustrated with examples as it was a beauty/business blogger who I follow where I first heard the term, even though I had been doing this for years, I didn’t know what it was called.
Bloggers – photo shoots, content, meetings…
Personal life – meal prep, laundry, friend visits…
Plant manager - When I worked in operations in the construction industry, although it was quite structured with monthly tasks, I used batching to help achieve a certain number of customer meetings, one-on-one meetings with direct reports, and safety meeting preparation to give a few examples.
To maximize my time, instead of completing one customer visit per day, I would schedule a day of visits and have the same questions for each, which helped me further determine themes, trends and eventual hypothesis. (For example, what their biggest shipping challenge was). Combining all my customer visits into one day not only helped me save travel time but kept me laser-focused on only customer needs rather than breaking it up over the week. I used the same strategy for one-on-one meetings with direct reports.
I batched my planning for safety meetings once a month and blocked a few hours to prepare content rather than before each meeting as I was already in the creative safety planning mood so I had more ideas flowing.
I have used this technique and continue to use this when I am working on most tasks, especially creative ones, it helps keep me consistent, stress free, and saves time.
Now you know my best productivity tip which can be used in all areas of your life.
Next week we are discussing some of key outsourcing strategies I use in my personal and business life.
