I had a wonderful meeting with my mentor at the end of July, and one of the things we spoke about was "batching." In essence, she asserted that my time is valuable, and to make the most of it, I need to use it efficiently. That means grouping together similar tasks and getting super-focused on doing them all within that same block of time.
I had already intuitively implemented a lot of batching practices in my life (though I have to say that I practice some more regularly than others). Things like:
- When I run errands, I group them together based on location (there's extra incentive now because of gas prices)
- Saving up cheques for less trips to the ATM (I also avoid any fees by doing my cash withdrawals at the same time, at my own bank)
- Processing emails only twice a day (this one's been harder to stick with, and I still do like to check more frequently for messages from clients)
When it comes to writing, batching has meant creating a special block of time in my calendar every week for drafting, writing and pre-scheduling blog posts. I'm sitting in this time slot right now, and it feels spacious and precious to me. This routine has progressed out of my blogging in fits and spurts technique, and using the "draft" post function as an idea catcher is what makes it work.
Writing Prompt: What are some writing jobs that you could group together to tap into the momentum and efficiency of batching?
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