Jess Lively

Lately I have been struggling to keep up with my schedule.

And at first I was kinda excited about it. There was some little ego satisfaction that came from having “so much to do.”

I mean, common. It’s better than having too little to do, right?

But lately I’ve been realizing that this pace is:

A) Unsustainable.

B) Ineffective.

I’m really good at intentionally choosing what I have on my plate. But how I go about doing those things lately has not been the most efficient.

However, my new business coach, Tim Ferriss, is setting me straight.

(No, he’s not my actual coach. I’m just reading his book and pretending that he’s talking directly to me. You do that too, right?)

The other day Tim gave me a scheduling smack down:

“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective – doing less – is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.”

Though I am serving people and fulfilling my purpose, I’m not doing a fantastic job with managing my time and hence feeling that overwhelm.

For example, last week, despite bringing on two new assistants to help me, I found myself wishing I could insert an IV into my arm to deliver my caloric intake. Taking the time to eat breakfast or lunch was stealing precious time from other things I “needed to do.”

Hello, crazy town.

Something’s gotta give. And it’s not going to be my Trader Joe’s Mac and Cheese.

So now, starting this week, I’m instituting Tim’s remedy for the redundant and ineffective schedule: batching.

I’ll let Tim explain:

“There is an inescapable setup time for all tasks, large or minuscule in scale. It is often the same for one as it is for a hundred. There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to resume a major task that has been interrupted. More than a quarter of each 9-5 period (28%) is consumed by such interruptions.”

Thank you, Mr. Business Coach. That extra 28% is the time I need to eat my cheesy goodness. It’s the time when I can relax during my day and enjoy my pup. It’s the time when can proofread my WIKW emails so I don’t spell “assets” like “asses” … like I did last week.

Batching is pretty simple. It’s the idea that I can wait until work accumulates to do it all at once rather than doing it a zillion times per day or week.

For me, this is going to save me the most time when it comes to social media and email. Those are the two areas I “check in on” most often during the day when I could really be working with more clients, creating new content, or eating.

Tomorrow in the Wish I Knew Wednesday email I’ll be sharing exactly how I plan to batch my schedule for the next week. My hope is this trial run with a really concerted effort to be accountable will help me discover a batching system that works for my business and opens up my schedule. Plus, I’ll be inviting others to join in on the batching challenge as well.

Until then, please consider Tim’s advice and add a little batching to your own schedule!