Are you batching your work or are you slicing your hours into time confetti?

This blog comes from my wonderful colleague Wendy Cole. She has written such a relevant and practical post that I asked her if I may share it with you.

While Wendy writes about think of where managing the inbox fits into your schedule. Are you processing your emails in a batch of a specific block of time or are you responding to them in an ‘ad hoc’ fashion? Are you managing your email in a ‘structured’ way or an ‘unstructured’ one?

As Wendy asks, ‘Are you batching your email or slicing your hours into time confetti’?

Working in blocks of time on similar or related tasks is more efficient than doing these tasks at different times throughout your day or week. Frequent context changing costs you time and energy. The modern workplace is damagingly demanding and distracting. You need a strategy. Begin with a weekly review: · List everything that you need to complete · Notice the related activities and deadlines · Reorganise your to-do list so that similar tasks are batched together · Consider the best time for you to do the different types of work. Next, head to your calendar and timebox: · Schedule time in your calendar to complete related tasks.

Priority tasks should be scheduled as early in the day and as early in the week as possible · Bigger blocks of time for your batched activities will reduce context changing. Now work from your calendar with focus, one batched task at a time.