Too Much of a Good Thing?

I’m always trying to be more effective and more efficient at what I do. One of the ways I do this is by batching similar tasks together. So for example, I’ll spend half an hour twice a day answering emails. I’ll do all invoicing and accounting tasks in one go etc. This method has worked pretty well over the last couple of years. So much so that I’ve tried to apply it to more and more areas of my work.

More recently though, there have been a couple of times when I think that doing things in this way has caused a negative. One was a delay in me getting information to someone, that made them feel less important than they are. Another was an important task that needing doing, but I knew it wouldn’t get done for a couple of days when I had some similar tasks. It was then always in the back of my mind, niggling me, and taking up headspace. This in turn lead to worry and stress that could actually have been avoided.

So yes I’m still going to batch a lot of things, but maybe not as much as I’ve tried to do. We sometimes find a method of working that works really well, but then think it’s a magic fix for everything and overuse it. I think it’s a good idea to regularly take a step back, review these kind of things, and then if required, adjust accordingly.

Thanks

Richard