One of the things I’ve always struggled with is concentration and beating procrastination. No matter how excited I was about my work, there was always those times when I’d find myself watching YouTube videos instead of focusing on what matters. I’ve come across a ton of strategies for fixing this, but none have been as effective for me as task batching. Today, I want to take a look at what task batching is, and why it’s such an effective productivity method.
What Is Task Batching?
Task batching is simply that, batching tasks together. The key is that you batch like tasks together, and use that fact to help stay focused. By doing this, you limit distractions, help stay focused, and ultimately get more done. To sum it up, you set a period of time where you do similar tasks and this helps you stay focused. Simple right?
How you define like tasks is up to you. I personally do a lot of two types of work, coding and writing; so the division is pretty easy for me. I split my days up with a portion of my day dedicated to writing, and another part to coding. Depending on my workload, I might dedicate an entire day to a single task type. The time period is not what really matters, but that you spend each dedicated period to similar tasks.
This is just one example of batching tasks though. For example, maybe you run a few websites, and each one has the need for writing, marketing, answering customer, emails, and a variety of other tasks. You could go through and do each set of tasks for each website, or you could batch it where you do all the tasks for each site at once.
There’s no set rule on what you have to do or how you have to batch. It’s open to customize based on your own preferences and what works best for you. Keep in mind though, the closer the tasks are together the better. Take the above website example and add video creation as one of the tasks for instance. Does that fit in with the other tasks? It might for some people, but for others you might to setup a new batch for video production for all your sites at once.
Why Does It Matter?
The big reason why task batching is so effective is that multi tasking simply isn’t. There’s been a bunch of studies done on the subject, and suffice to say that multi-tasking actually hurts productivity instead of helping it.
The issue is that switching between tasks is not a seamless experience. Your brain actually needs time to adjust, and mentally “catch up” to the change in workflow. This change, “catching up” so to speak, is something that takes time, and ultimately hurts your productivity. The further away the two tasks are mentally the more difficult this switch is.
The more times per day you do this mental switching process the more time you’re going to end up wasting. That’s why task batching is so effective as it limits the amount of switching you do, and helps keep you focused on a similar set of work. If you’re the type of person that gets in “the flow”, then task batching is going help you stay there longer.
How It Stops Procrastination
Another big benefit I’ve notice from task batching is it helps stop procrastination and unnecessary “breaks”. You see, that period where you’re switching tasks is a prime time to lose your focus. Your brain isn’t really focused, and that’s the easiest time to fall prey to distractions.
The key to beating procrastination is to get and stay in the zone, and when you switch tasks you have to get back into it. Each time you switch tasks you take yourself momentarily out of work mode to transition, and I can’t tell you how many times that led to an hour long video session that shouldn’t have happened.
If you’re using task batching, you experience less of these switches and consequently less potential times to lose focus. Personally, I like to line up my batches with natural breaks as well to help the day flow. For example, I might have a writing block scheduled up until 12:30 where I might be taking a lunch anyways. This both serves as motivation, but also helps stop me having to taking breaks mid batch and have to get back into it later. The less times you have stop and start working throughout the day the better.
How Can I Start Using It?
It’s easy, but it takes a bit of effort at first. Stick with it though, as the time you gain by being more focused will heavily outweigh the time spend planning your day.
Start getting a list of all your tasks together. If you’re not already tracking tasks that’s a whole new article, but start doing it now.
Take your tasks that are alike and group them together. As noted above, alike can mean different things to different people. Don’t be afraid to experiment a bit to find what helps you get in the flow the best.
Block out your day with different blocks of alike work. I always recommend people start tracking their time and spend some time estimating out work. This helps make sure the work you assign to a 3 hour block is actually doable in 3 hours.
BONUS: Task batching lends itself very well to those who like to color code things. If you’re a very visual person, simply assign a different color to set of alike tasks you put together above. Then, you can put them in your planner like so, and have a visual guide to your day!
That’s really all there is to it. It’s not magic or anything like that, it just requires a bit of extra effort. It might be a bit difficult the first few times, but stick with and it gets easier, I promise.
Overall, I absolutely love task batching. Since I’ve started using it I’m more productive, focused, and less likely to end on Youtube before my work is done. If you want to improve on any of those items I highly recommend giving it a try, you won’t regret it.
If you’re looking for more tips for task batching as well as scheduling, planning, and business productivity, check out my new book available on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback format.