Task Batching: More Than Just Avoiding Context Switching

This week, I want to share three methods for task batching. That could help you save time, make the most of your mental energy, and be more responsive.

But, before I dive into the details of HOW to batch, let me start things off with a silly story of mine that shows you WHY batching is important.

As we all know, it’s impossible to have a dishwasher in an Asian household.

This means I’ve been stuck hand-washing dishes since I was a kid. What made it even more tragic for me is that I somehow never learned a better way of doing the dishes than tackling them one by one.

For every single dirty dish, I scrap, soap, scrub, rinse, and then put it on the rack.

And I repeat it for the next dirty dish. Scraping, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, and then putting it on the rack.

It usually takes me more than 30 minutes to get through all the dishes in the sink. It’s a literal pain, causing my back to hurt and my fingers to sting.

I only realized much later in life that I could be batching all the dishwashing steps together to speed up the process. I start by scraping all the dishes, then I soap them all at once, scrub them in one go, and finally rinse them together. This way, I can now clean the whole sink of dishes in just 5 minutes. That’s 1/6th of the time it used to take! (Yes, I just timed myself doing the dishes)

Since I started doing this, I don’t have back pain or stinging fingers from washing dishes anymore, because I picked up so much speed.

That’s why you should batching. Best case scenario it can save you from the torment of daily physical anguish!

Now that you know WHY to batch, let’s dive into HOW to batch.

This is the most straightforward approach to batch tasks. Simply label tasks based on their physical requirements, such as “At Home”, “At Computer”, or “In Meeting with George”.1 Then batch process them when the requirements are met.

By doing so, you won’t have to constantly switch gears (either physically or mentally) when moving from one task to another. As a result, your productivity increases, and you can accomplish more in less time.

I upgraded my dishwashing using this approach. For example, by batching all the scrubbing, I eliminate the need to continuously pick up and drop the scrub sponge, and I can maintain a consistent posture, this all helped me drastically speed up the process.

Here are some common physical requirement labels you can use to get started with this way of batching.

• Places (e.g., Home, Office)

• Tools (e.g., Computer, Phone)

• Time (e.g., After hours)

• People (e.g., George)

While batching by physical requirements is great, I’ve found that batching by mental requirements is even more effective. Often, the bottleneck for productivity lies in the mental aspect rather than the physical aspect.

As David Kadavy said:

Who cares what project the task is in? What matters is you're mentally able to do the task.

He identified these seven mental states of creative work, which I found really helpful for batching tasks:

• Prioritize

• Explore

• Research

• Generate

• Polish

• Administrate

• Recharge

By understanding these mental requirements of different tasks and grouping them accordingly, I’m able to make the most of my mental state. When I have high energy levels, I can focus on creative work rather than wasting my mental capacity on simple tasks. On days when I’m not feeling my best, I can effortlessly identify manageable tasks and still stay productive.

For a deeper understanding of the seven mental states, I recommend reading David Kadavy’s book, “Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters.”

I saw awesome results when I added this method to my GTD Inbox app. It made going through my Inbox a breeze. I could easily find tasks that suit my current mental state and finish them with ease.

Give it a try and see the power of batching by mental requirements for yourself!

Download on the App Store

There’s this thing in computer science called “Interrupt Coalescing,” where tasks are grouped together based on when they need to be done. Instead of dealing with tasks one by one, they’re put off until the last possible moment and then handled all at once. Essentially postponing tasks until it’s almost too late.

Operating systems use this technique to balance productivity and responsiveness.

You can apply this approach to personal productivity by scheduling specific time blocks for checking your email. By only reviewing your emails during these designated times, you can reduce distractions. And, by adjusting the allocation of time blocks, you can fine-tune your desired level of responsiveness.

I think there are more ways to use this task batching method, but right now, I can’t think of any examples other than managing email. I’d be really interested to hear your ideas and any other ways you think it could be used!

Thanks for reading this week’s Weekly Productivity Upgrade!

That’s all there is to it, so let’s quickly recap the key points.

• Batching can save you from the torment of daily physical anguish.

• Any kind of batching will help reduce context-switching.

• If you want more speed, batch tasks by physical requirements.

• If you want to make the most of your mental energy, batch tasks by mental requirements.

• If you want to be responsive while being productive, batch tasks by responsive time requirements.