Batch Work vs Daily Tasks
Batch Work vs Daily Tasks
Is it better to batch all of your work or have daily tasks? Personally, I believe it depends on the person. Batching work is like doing a month’s worth of work in one day. For example, some bloggers will write a month’s worth of blog posts all in one day. Then they don’t have to worry about doing one each week. It sounds great in theory but I feel like it depends on who you are and how you work if this method is right for you.
Batch Work Pros
Here are the pros of doing batch work.
- It is all done at once and you can check it off the list for the whole month.
- It only takes one or two days to complete a month’s worth of content which is a major time saver.
- You are able to brain dump and get all of those ideas out and things flow into the next easily.
- You can get more done in the month if each day you batched everything.
As you can see there are great pros to this method. You are able to check big things off your list. A month’s work of work can be done in one week. If you batched all of your blog posts one day, your images the next, your social media posts next, your emails the next, and so on!
In the first week of each month you could have all your major work done and would still have three more weeks to work on everything else!
However to me, as great as it sounds it also has some cons that come along with it such as these.
Batch Work Cons
- It can be overwhelming.
- What if you have a foggy brain day that day.
- What if something comes up that day and you can’t reschedule so now your behind.
- If you go too long in between working you may feel disconnected.
- If you dedicate one whole day to one thing then other things may not get done.
To me, the process seems overwhelming. I love the idea of it all getting done in one day and to schedule one day a month to finish a month’s worth of work sounds great! But at the same time, there are so many daily tasks that I do each day that it kind of feels overwhelming because I would get backed up on those.
Then if I were to write 4 blog posts in one day and then not write any more until the next month I worry I would be disconnected and lost. I would have to go back through what I wrote before to get myself back into the flow.
Also, a lot of bloggers are growing their blogs on the side with only 30 minutes a day to spare. They don’t have this option to batch all of their work. Or maybe this method is perfect so they only have to work a few full days out of the whole month.
This is where I again feel like it depends on the person as to which method fits into their lives. Let’s look at the pros of doing daily tasks.
Daily Task Pros
- You are able to check things off daily.
- Smaller “bit-sized tasks” are less overwhelming.
- You stay involved daily and fresh in your business.
- You have the option to move things around or change things.
- More things get done each day.
I love checking things off of my list and even if I only put three major things on there a day that makes me feel like I made progress. Then if I have to roll something over to the next day I can do that. With batch work I don’t feel like that would work. Then you would have pushed a large project over onto another day full of another large project.
Life is too unpredictable and I feel like with daily tasks I can knock out a few small projects and feel like I have gotten something done.
Also, this helps me be able to choose which small project I can put into each time frame I have blocked off!
Of course, there are also cons that come with doing daily tasks.
Daily Task Cons
- May take up more time than batching per each project.
- With a bunch of little tasks, you may feel overwhelmed.
- Things could get lost or forgotten on the to-do list.
- The list feels like it gets longer and longer every day.
Daily tasks may feel overwhelming to some. Once more it just depends on the person. Seeing a long list full of little projects may be too much for someone. As another person may see small attainable goals.
It is all about your perspective and how you personally handle projects and to-do lists!
What should you do?
The best way to find out which one is right for you is to give each one of them a try! If you have a Saturday that is free then you could try dedicating that whole day to only batching one month’s worth of work. Then you will see if that worked for you or if it was a struggle.
Go through the list of pros and cons of each and get a feel for what you think you can handle.
Combined them
Then (and this is actually what I think I am going to do) you could even try doing both! Pick the project that seems to be the hardest for you to get done and put that at the top of your list at the beginning of the month.
Batch that work and then you don’t have to procrastinate on getting that project done each week. It will already be done for the whole month!
Now you can focus the rest of the month to getting your daily tasks done!
Which method works best for you?
Happy blogging!
Vanessa
Need a calendar to keep track of all your tasks? Here is a free download of blank monthly calendars by Consistently Procrastinating!
