Batch-working as a practitioner is a laser-focused way to get more done in less time. If you’re ready to save time and stress while serving your patients well, start batching your work with these 3 tips.
Do you ever feel like you’re in a constant race to get everything done? Some days, you feel like you rock it. But other days, you bounce around your to-do list like a pinball. Being yanked in multiple directions or feeling like you have to multitask constantly is a surefire way to get worn out and feel unproductive – no matter how many hours you put in at the office.
Surely there’s a better way – something that will save your sanity and actually make the kind of progress you need. But what could that be? Keep reading to find out…
Batching Your Work as a Practitioner – What It Is & Why You Need to Do It
One way to get sweet relief from your multitasking nightmare is to batch your work.
Batch-working basically means that you’re focusing on doing one thing at a time. When you batch-work, you become hyper-focused on a certain area or task in your practice for a specific amount of time.
We know this may sound crazy and like it won’t work, but hear us out. When you bake mouth-watering cookies or those delicious blueberry muffins, you’re whipping them up in – you guessed it – batches. You stick your first pan in the oven while you prepare the next. Each batch gets its own time to bake.
The same goes for batch-working as a practitioner. Instead of chasing every item on your to-do list without rhyme or reason, batching helps you be laser-focused, efficient, and wildly productive in one area – like catching up on admin work, prepping for your upcoming webinar, or cranking out your marketing to-do’s.
So, if you’re thinking that batching may be for you (spoiler: it is!), here are three tips to help you batch your work like a pro.
Tip 1: Find What Works For You
We work with practitioners who now swear by batching their work, and what we’ve learned is everyone does it differently. If you’re a health coach, you may have a more variable schedule than a chiropractor who has patients scheduled back-to-back during defined office hours. This means that how you batch may differ by how your days are set-up. Here are 3 of the batch styles we commonly see:
- Batching by the day: This is when you reserve Mondays for admin and business development, Tuesdays for email marketing or social media, and so on.
- Batching by the hour: Instead of theming your days, this approach helps you schedule parts of each day for your batch-work.
- Batch by the project: Whether it’s writing your social posts, building your new gut health course, or preparing to launch a new service, batching by initiative is another way to hone in your focus.
Play around with the different ways to batch until you find what works best for you, your mental energy, and your schedule!
Tip 2: Break Your Batching Down
By nature, batching is designed to help you knock out a larger project in one chunk of time. But that larger project is made up of a bunch of nitty-gritty tasks. So, when it comes time to start tackling the big picture, break it down into bite-sized pieces.
Let’s say you want to write all your social media content for a month. To do that, you have to:
- Identify and research topics
- Draft your posts
- Edit them
- Find photos or create graphics to match each one
It can easily feel like a lot. So, when you sit down to work on your social media, try knocking out these smaller categories in segments. For example, instead of researching, writing, editing, and designing graphics for one post at a time…change it up:
- Spend an hour identifying all your topics and researching them before you move on to drafting.
- Take another hour or so to write all your posts at once.
- Reserve 30-45 minutes for editing.
- Finish your batch-working project strong by creating all your graphics at once.
By breaking your larger project down into smaller categories, you can give those individual tasks the focus and attention they deserve. This will help your finished products (in this case, your social posts) be the best they can be!
Tip 3: Knock It Out – Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
Okay, so you’re sold on trying out batching. You’ve set aside time to focus on one task and get it off your plate. You’re ready to be productive and crank out some amazing work. But when the time comes, you feel unmotivated and not focused…
Ugh! What are you supposed to do?!
Do it anyways! Resist the temptation to wait until the moment “feels right.” Batching is all about moving the needle forward on the things that will drive your practice. It’s a way to prioritize your work and make tangible progress with astounding efficiency.
So, if you sit down to batch-work, and you’re not feeling it, challenge yourself to put your head down and do the work anyway. Turn your phone on airplane mode, close your inbox, log out of social media, and crank up your Spotify “focus” playlist for some stellar motivation, and get to it!
Boost Your Productivity and Start Batching Your Work Today
The best part about batching your work is that there’s no right or wrong way. The main goal is to get more done in less time and with less stress.
Batching your work helps you become super-focused, spikes your productivity, and prevents you from feeling wiped out at the end of the day. So, how do you get started batch-working as a practitioner? We recommend that you:
- Decide what type of projects you want to batch (like social media, blogging, emails, etc.)
- Choose a batching style, such as by day, hour, or project
- Block time on your calendar to get it done!
Getting started can sometimes feel like the hardest part. If the thought of batching your work paralyzes you, we’d love to help. Contact us to chat about what you have going on, and we’ll share some specific steps to get you moving again.
Happy batching!
