Can you believe we’re in freaking October already? Geez. Time flies guys. This month we’re going to discuss some of my favorite productivity hacks. I get asked all the time how I get so much done and if I get any sleep.
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How do I get so much done?
I do sleep, and I very rarely work past 4:00. I’m able to get eight to nine hours of sleep every night. I rarely work on weekends anymore. So, I get a lot done in very short amounts of time and it’s because I’ve learned how to work really, really smart over the years. I used to do the whole 12, 13, 14, 15 hour day thing and occasionally that is needed. Occasionally, that is something that needs to happen, but it definitely doesn’t happen as much as it used to. I never really wanted to subscribe to that because I never wanted to get into bad health habits. So, I became more obsessed with the idea of how can I work the most efficiently with the limited time that I have? And I just became totally obsessed with this concept.
So for this week, I want to talk about my favorite productivity hack of all time and it’s called batching. Batching is my favorite. Batching, in case you don’t know what it is, is when you do similar tasks all within the same time frame.
So for example, I’m batching right now. Mondays are my content creation days. I knew I had to get a lot of podcast episodes done, so I batched them. I batched like three months worth of podcast episodes in one day. In one regular workday. And in a matter of three hours, I’ve basically done three months worth of podcast episodes. And it’s because of batching.
How To Use Batching: Batching Your Tasks
So, there’s two ways that you can do batching. You can do batching in time blocks. This morning, I was doing some YouTube stuff, then I had a meeting with my team and then, in the afternoon I was doing podcast stuff. Or you can do it by day. I kind of batch by day to day too, because today was a content marketing day.
And the reason this works really, really well for me is because I personally find it extremely difficult to jump from one task to another. I can’t be like, “Oh, let me do sales for an hour and then let me go do a podcast for an hour and let me go do this.” And I find like a lot of people try and do that and they overstuff their days and it’s just not good for you. It stresses you the hell out. You can’t get focused, you can’t get in a flow.
Meanwhile, if you decide to batch, you just get in that weird zone and work on the same thing until you’re tired of it. I do the same thing with the YouTube videos. I’ll batch them. I can knock 12 out in a few hours.
How I started
When I did freelance writing, I would batch the work for freelance writing. If I have some sort of other project, I batch it. I just make sure that I’m focusing on the similar tasks at the same time so that I get in a flow and I get momentum and I find that I get a lot more work done that way and I’m not as frazzled.
And you know, sometimes I still have to do it. I run a company, so I wear a few different hats sometimes, but I try to avoid it as much as possible and that’s why I stick to using batching. It’s just so stressful to try and cram your day with a whole bunch of different things that don’t really have anything to do with each other. So, I don’t do it.
How I Use Batching In My Business
So if I’m like, “Hey, I already got content marketing scheduled for this day, we’re just sticking to content marketing.” If I’m like, “Hey, we got sales this day,” then that’s all I’m doing that day is sales. And I find that three things happen. One, I’m less stressed. Two, I get way more done because I get in a flow and I get in a groove. And number three, I get things done a lot faster because I get in a groove.
So batching is my absolute favorite. And you can organize it any way that you want. You can do it by time blocks during the day or maybe you just dedicate a whole day to a certain activity. That’s how I personally like to do it. But it’s up to you, whichever works best for you.
Sometimes I will say that maybe I’ll do a task, a certain task in the morning, break for lunch, and then I’ll switch tasks in the afternoon and it might be because I’m like a little burned out from the sales stuff and then my brain wants to go do something more creative. I play with it sometimes. But for the most part, I stick to batching my days.
An example of my day to day
So Monday is content marketing, Tuesday is clients and sales, Wednesday is pretty much clients and sales, and so on. I might do a little bit of content marketing on Fridays because Fridays tend to be slower. So, that’s personally how I like to do it. I find that this is the one productivity hack that’s so simple yet so effective and so brilliant. If you haven’t tried it yet, I would try it. I challenge you to try it and see how much more you get done and also how much you lower your stress. And I would love to know what that is.
Resources that are mentioned or add value to this episode:
- Persuade To Profit
- Make Money Your Honey Book
- How to Make Your First $100K Online (Even If No One Knows Who You Are)
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