We shouldn’t blame ourselves for wasted time! Blame Instagram for its beautiful pictures, Tik-Tok for those foot-tapping dances, and BuzzFeed for its insanely clever quizzes! Well, OK, maybe we do deserve some of the blame.
Does social media, email, phone notifications, and crochet quizzes (shameless plug) take you away from work and into another dimension? Do you suddenly snap out of it, look at the clock, and feel instant dread that no work has gotten done.
Well, I feel your pain. Been there! Done that!!
The reason I was losing precious time and getting zero work done was because I had no plan – no outline or blueprint to guide me through my work day. I was just flying by the seat of my pants.
I knew I needed to find a system that helped me get organized and work with purpose, and so I did what any good business owner would do: I Googled it. After searching for tips and tricks on how to become more productive with my time, I stumbled upon something called batching.
Batching is the act of grouping related work tasks, and getting them done all together.
I like to think of batching like how you shop in a store. When you walk into, say Target, everything is laid out into sections. Sections help you to navigate the store quickly, and find related items within each section easily. This way of shopping is much more efficient than if the store simply placed items at random throughout the store. Batching your work, in the same way, will help you pick a particular area of focus for the project at hand, and zone in on those tasks until it’s done.
If you’re a project jumper like me, and want to stay on task, batching your work may be just what you need. For example you can batch writing blog posts, emails, social media or even captions, all in one chunk of time, or in one day. Batching helps to keep full concentration on the group of related tasks at hand, in turn, getting more done in less time.
For me, photography was my downfall. I’d take some of my more detailed process photos together, but I’d put off my finished product shots and social media images for later, since I was working through my process chronologically. But, since I’d have to get my photography setup together again for those additional shots, I ended up duplicating work and wasting time. Now that I’m batching, all my photography is taken together, before I move on with other tasks – so instead of handling things chronologically within my pattern creation process, and wasting time with duplicated work, I batch together these tasks for efficiency, and haven’t looked back since!
Need some help getting your ideas onto paper? Here’s a free batching printable to get you brainstorming. Batch it out with whatever schedule works best for you, and increase your productivity in no time. Let’s stop the blame game and reclaim the work day, together!
Here’s an example of a batching schedule:
Download your free batching printable here.
Download your free pastel batching printable here.
