Having trouble staying on top of things? Well, you’re not the only one. Having effective time management is one of the hardest challenges for employees. From meetings, to planning, to everyday tasks. It can feel quite chaotic running between tasks.
Most people schedule tasks during their day based on when there is available time. I’m not saying you should do tasks when you don’t have time. But instead, put some thought and intention into your schedule.
I’m talking about batching. The most important and effective thing that you can do as an entrepreneur, or actually as anybody, is to batch your tasks together. But what does that actually mean?
What is batching?
Batching means you take tasks that require similar effort, or tasks that are similar in nature, and you do them together. One example is that you do all of your email and social media once a day, at one specific time. This approach will increase productivity immediately, no doubt.
It takes about 15 minutes for the brain to re-focus on something after being disturbed. Which means that after checking your phone, it will take your brain 15 minutes before it is fully focused on the task again.
By batching all your tasks together, you can actually focus one the tasks you have scheduled for that time period. When you don’t, you will constantly cheque your email, social media etc. The whole day will go by, and by the time you respond to an email and then try to jump back to the task that you were working on, you are no longer focused.
Schedule by batching
An example of scheduled batching might be to batch your meetings together. If you have the option of being able to schedule your meetings whenever you want to, this is a great trick for effective time management.
Try not having any meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, but instead only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That way, you know that Tuesdays and Thursdays are meeting days, or phone call days, and all of them are batched together.
This gives you time to mentally prepare, and you can knock all them out together. Knowing that you don’t have to worry about any of that on the other days, you can focus better. If you’re doing creative writing, or you’re doing content, group those tasks together. Because that’s going to be the mental frame and the mindset that you’re in. So when you group these tasks, you’re going to get through them much quicker.
Because you’re already in that mindset, or in that state of flow. You will find out you’re going to be more engaged in the task. Because again, you are going to want to get those things done. You’re also going to find that you will be far more productive, and far more engaged in the stuff that you’re doing. And above all, it will save you time. Tonnes and tonnes of time.
So the next time you are planning your day, or planning your week, look at what some of those common tasks are. If you have meetings, if you’re going to be checking email, or doing social media.
Try to do it once, twice, maybe three times during the day. Instead of checking it 100 times throughout the day. If you have writing that needs to get done, batch writing together. Whatever it is that your tasks are, I promise you, it will pay dividends for your time to batch them together!
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