“Batching your work tasks can improve efficiency and effectiveness.”
Today we discuss batching our work tasks to improve workflow.
What:
Completing similar tasks in groups and planning tasks for maximum efficiency.
Why:
Every time we change tasks it takes time. If a particular task takes 3 minutes to complete with 2 minutes of preparation and we do the same task every day that’s 25 minutes in a week. If we batch those tasks and only did them once per week it would be 17 minutes of work. See the time savings here?
How:
Start with your email and phone calls. Try to batch the reading and responding to emails each day. I do not respond to email unless it’s absolutely necessary until each afternoon. This saves me from getting caught in the email time drain. Do the same with phone calls, set aside a couple of times throughout the day to make and take calls.
Once you get the hang of emails and calls start batching all your other tasks. Try to batch like tasks together on the same days like all accounting type functions could be scheduled for Wednesday. Do the same for your other tasks and work to keep your mind working in a similar fashion (ie. if doing math stay with math, if writing stay with writing).
If you start batching your tasks you will see a huge improvement in your effectiveness and efficiency.
Take-Action Items:
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Start batching your emails and phone calls
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Batch other like tasks together and put them on your agenda
