How to Batch Work to Save Yourself Tons of Important Time
How to Batch Work to Save Yourself Tons of Important Time
Today, I’m going to be talking about batching. I believe that we all have that extra time, many days, that time is wasted, and you don’t even realize it. This is going to be a really cool episode for you.
In this post, I’m going to share:
– How to batch work as well as some ideas for tasks you can batch.
– Ways that batching work can save you time, money and resources,
– Tasks you can batch as well as tasks that are difficult or impossible to batch.
Once I’ve discovered batching, which maybe you already do this, but if you don’t, it’s gonna really help you, at least I hope it will, like it has helped me.
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What is Batching
So let’s talk first about what is batching? Well, let’s say you have some important tasks that you don’t really like doing as much. Or maybe you really like doing them and you’d love to just get a big chunk of them done in a day.
Also, maybe the task can be easily put together all at once.
Well, basically batching is sitting down, timing out a chunk of your day or your time, and getting the task done. This could be 10 minutes, this could be four hours – Just kind of assigning that time to this task. And just recording or creating or, or doing the task all at one time until it’s done.
Once the task is done, it’s done for a while for as as much as you did. It’s done for that amount of time. Batching is a really wonderful thing. After you’re done with the time that you spend on this task, you can do other things in that time. You get that time back for something else.
I know it’s so awesome.
Next, I’m going to talk to you about what you can batch. There are tasks that you can batch and things that are a little bit harder to batch.
I think of batching as like making a batch of cookies, taking a batch of cookies out of the oven. When you take a batch of cookies out of the oven, you just pulled out 12-14 cookies. Well, if you were to have a cookie a day, that would be 12 to 14 days or the cookies. That’s almost two weeks. I know it’s amazing.
So what can you batch?
Well, here are a few ideas and some things that I do. I’m kind of gonna go through each one a little bit in depth. I’m sure that you can think of so many more things that you can batch after listening to this. You will be amazed and you will not be able to wait to be able to try batching your tasks.
So what can you batch?
Well, you can batch repetitive tasks. One thing that I really like batching is cooking. I’m not a huge fan of cooking, I would rather much rather be outside. So I like to batch cooking or batching out my meal planning.
If you have your recipes and ingredients ahead of time, then you can go ahead and make all your meals in about four hour chunks for the week. Another way you can batch cook is just doubling a recipe or using your crock pots you have. Putting your ingredients in and then you have crock pot meals for for however many you can make.
So there’s a multitude of ways to do this.
It’s all about finding a chunk of time to do this task more efficiently.
Another thing that I like to batch is garden work. You can learn more about this. I have a blog post on low maintenance, gardening, and gardening. Go here to read that post. And basically, it’s like taking one weekend and doing all of the garden work as you plant your crop.
We have a huge garden because we have a garden business. So we grow for farmers markets and CSA. Rather than taking days and days and days to do all the planting and care through the season, we take three days, and we get it all done or set up.
Here’s some of the gardening tasks we batch:
– Soil Work,
– Mulching,
– Water Set Ups,
– Insect Preventative
So we’ll just make a list of things that need done in a certain garden. And between the four of us, my husband and two little girls help, we can get it all done in a timely manner in three days. So that is kind of how we batch garden work.
And then we don’t have we don’t have to worry about weeds through the season. We don’t have to worry about fertilizing unless we see a problem. So it’s about doing the things up front. To give you more time later, it’s nice to be able to walk out into the garden and just look at your plants and not have to see any weeds.
Another task that I really like to batch is creating new resources for you.
I’ll make a list of all of the resources that I want to create. And I’ll sit down at the computer and I’ll work on those for about an hour, or however much time I have.
When I’m recording podcast episodes. I like to batch those when my family is asleep, when nobody’s going to bother me and I need complete quiet. I can batch those as well, at a certain time set by me.
You can also batch out farm projects
One example of this is butchering. you can take a weekend and do all of your butchering. We also like to cut up the meat as we’re butchering them, instead of just freezing. Like say we’re butchering chickens, will will butcher the whole will butcher all the chickens and also cut up all the pieces in one day so we’ll take care of all of that at one time.
And that’s kind of what I mean by batching. Just taking a chunk of time and getting a task done, so that you don’t have to worry about it later. So what things can you batch and your life, what are some things that you can think of that you can turn into batch work in the next few days, I’m going to be batching all of my podcast episodes for the rest of the year. It will just all be done.
I love batching.
I love finding things that I can batch but there are some things that you cannot batch. Let’s talk about those things now.
What Can’t You Batch?
There’s some things in your life that that is impossible to batch: To be able to to do the task in one time chunk and not worry about later. So what are some of those things?
Well, you could probably guess one of those things is self care. So you still have to brush your teeth every day. And you still have to take a shower. And you know you have to do that stuff every day. That’s just one of those things that you just can’t batch.
You really can’t batch exercise. You could do every other day and do like a double workout every other day and then take every other day, alternate day off.
But it’s a little bit hard when you have exercise that you must do.
It’s hard to batch farm chores like feeding animals and taking care of animals. They kind of need to be taken care of every day. So you can you can have a schedule. And you can have self feeders and stuff that will help you save time, but you do need to make sure that they’re being taken care of.
And then leisure time and travel. Those are things that can’t really batch. I mean, you could take a chunk of time and visit a whole country, a whole continent that could be thought of as batching. But why would you want to not take the time to enjoy them. So those are some things that it’s kind of hard or maybe even impossible to batch, I’m sure you can think of some more.
Batch Work Saves You Time
But the point is: If you batch other things that can be batched, your time is going to be more free. That is the big one. You’re gonna save a ton of time.
So the time that I’m saving by batching these podcast episodes can actually give me more time to work on courses and even work outside on some work or whatever I need to do.
It’s a matter of doing as many repetitive tasks as you can. I’ve done certain daily tasks that can be batched for so long that I don’t even really think about it much. And it’s just tasks that take a long time that could be done quicker.
I definitely time myself when I’m when I’m batching.
I work in 25 minute time limits. I’ll do 25 minutes, hard, focused work. And then I take a five minute break. This is the Pomodoro technique.
I want to encourage you to try this productivity tip to help you save more time. Having breaks in there is really nice, because you have a little time from it. Then you can clear your head and you’re ready to start back again. So not only can it save you time, it can save your sanity as well.
Batch Work Can Save You Money
Batching can also help you save money. Wait, how in the world can it help you save money?
For one thing, once you know how much you need, you won’t be spending more than you have. Once you know how much you made, then you won’t be spending more than you need.
And that’s kind of the gist of it. You can get all your supplies needed for this amount of time. And you won’t be running out or wasting your supplies. If it’s a perishable item, it won’t go bad on you. And then you’ll be done. You can do something with the item that you need, and you won’t be wasting.
Also, you should always think of your time as money. Time and money kind of go hand in hand. To me, that’s kind of how I think I care about my time. My time is gold.
Batch Work Can Help Save You Resources
Along with that, batching can help save you resources. Money and resources kind of go hand in hand. Another thought along with that is that if there’s an app I’m using, I can get the app or use a free trial the app, get all my batching in and then I can just be done with it. So it can really save you a lot. And it’s definitely worth me telling you about it so that you can try it.
Action & Wrap Up
Again, there are some things that you can’t batch. And that’s just life. But there are a ton of things that you can batch. And you should focus on those tasks that can help you save time, money, and resources.
Batching is going to help you become a more efficient person. And you will stop saying: “I wish I had more time.” You will have so much more time that you won’t know what to do with all this time.
So I hope that this helps you.
And now you can go and try it out. What I want you to do first is make a list of all of your tasks that you need to do. These are maybe tasks that you have in your day. Write all those down and then try to figure out what tasks you can do in one chunk of time that will cover the next few weeks or even a season.
And then you will have that much more time that it would have taken you to complete those tasks.
You’re going to have so much more time.
Like I said, You are not gonna know what to do with all this extra time. So, friend, I hope that this has helped you if you know of somebody who needs to hear this episode, who maybe wonders where their time goes – Please share this post with them!
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