Want to know a secret to getting more done in less time? It’s called batching tasks. The definition of batching is “a quantity or number coming at one time or taken together.” A lot of people in computer fields know about this.
How Does Batching Work?
Basically, it’s doing a bunch of the same type of task all at the same time. So for example, if you were going to create a video, it would probably normally go like this:
Get your smartphone out. Get a tripod, and put the phone on the tripod. Spend a few minutes trying to get it set up exactly right so you’re in the right place and the background looks good. Figure out exactly what you want to talk about. Do a test video to make sure everything looks good. Finally record the video. If you’re not happy with it, re-do the video. Once you’re happy with it, take your phone out of the tripod. Put the tripod away. Upload your video to YouTube (or wherever you plan on uploading it.)
That’s a pretty long process for one video. That’s also not taking into account that you have to get into the mindset to create video, and that will take you some time as well.
Now, imagine how much less time it would take you if you did this:
Get your smartphone out. Get a tripod, and put the smartphone on the tripod. Spend a few minutes trying to get it set up exactly right so you’re in the right place and the background looks good. Record a video. If you’re not happy with it, re-do the video. Cross it off your list. Go to the next video on your list. Record that video. Cross it off your list. Go to the next video on your list. Record that video as well. Keep going and recording videos until you’ve gone through your entire list, and you’re happy with all of the videos. Then you can take your phone out of the tripod, and put the tripod away. You can upload all of your videos to your computer, and then upload and post them to wherever you want as you need them.
Can you see how much less time this will take you? Yes it will take less time because you don’t have to set up everything for each video. But it will also take less time because you’re already creating videos. You’re already in that mindset. You’re just going from one to the next and are ready to do that. You do need to put in a little bit of time ahead of time to decide the list of videos that you want to create in that session, but it’s time well spent.
What Can You Batch?
You can do this with almost anything. If it’s a task that you’re doing repetitively, it can be batched. Here are some examples of things that can be easy to batch.
Writing Blog Posts. Instead of writing one blog post, make a list of blog posts that you want to write in that session. Go from writing one blog post to the next. Even if you take a short break take a walk or get a snack, you’ll still be in the mindset and can get back to it quickly. You’ll still save time versus doing one blog post at a time with different tasks being worked on in between.
Creating Videos. We just went through the entire process above of how long it can take to create just one video. That’s why creating videos is one of the tasks that benefits the most from batching. Since you have to set things up and then put them away, you’re saving a lot of time. Not only do you save time because you’re staying in the same mindset, but because now you only need to set up and put things away once. Plus, you don’t need to take the extra time to make sure you’re wearing the clothes you want to for the video, and that you look how you want to.
Podcasts (or any audio.) Similar to videos, there can be some setup involved with creating an audio (of any kind.) You might have to get a microphone set up. You want to make sure it’s nice and quiet where you’re recording. You have to do a test audio to make sure that everything sounds perfect. And then at the end you have to put everything away. Again, by doing multiple audios (or podcasts) at once, you’re saving time not only with setup, but by staying in the same mindset.
Social Media. This is a great one because most social media lets you schedule things for the future. So if you want, you can spend an hour or two once a week and get an entire weeks worth of social media set up on one platform.
Work Related Emails. Now you can batch more than one task with your email. The first is to only check your email at certain times of the day. Only you know if it’s enough to check your email once or twice a day, or if you need to check it more frequently. But if you aren’t checking it every few minutes, you’ll save a lot of time. You can go look at a lot of new email you received all at once, and decide if you need to take action on any of them. This can also go with writing emails. If you have to send people email, consider batching that as well. Once you’re in the mindset of writing emails, it will go quicker as you write one after the other. A third way to save time with batching emails is when you’re sending out emails to your list. No one says that you have to do only one at a time. You can create enough emails for a week (or even a month!) at once if you want to.
Editing (videos, blog posts, audios, etc…) It doesn’t matter what you’re editing, it takes time to get into the mindset of doing it. But once you’re doing it, you get into the groove of it and can start going a little faster. Once you start editing something, you might as well continue with it and edit something else. If you’re editing a video, edit the rest of the videos that you finished. Edit a bunch of blog posts that you wrote, or multiple podcasts that you’ve recorded.
Besides saving time, there are some other benefits of batching as well. If you aren’t a fan of some of the tasks that you do, think of how much better you’ll feel when you’re only doing them once a week or once a month. Now you’re saving yourself from stress too! It also helps you be more organized. If you’re going to record multiple videos (or podcasts) or write many blog posts at once, you’re going to need to know what you’re going to talk about. Even if you don’t have it all mapped out, you’ll need at least a title or a subject. This forces you to do some planning so that you can batch your tasks. This helps your business as well. So the next time you’re about to do a task, see if you can add in more of the same type of task. You’ll save yourself some time if you do.
Enjoy,
