Time Batching vs Daily Tasks
Time Batching vs Daily Tasks
Is it better to batch all of your work in one day or have daily tasks throughout the month? Personally, I believe it depends on the person. Time batching work is like doing a month’s worth of work in one day. For example, some people will pick one day a month to do all the deep cleaning housework for the month. Others will pick one thing a day and tackle it that way. Then it doesn’t pile up and need to be tackled all in one day. Time batching work 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. Which one sounds like a fit for you?
Let’s go into more depth with each option to see which method is right for you. There are obviously pros and cons to both methods. To me, it sounds like a great plan to just dedicate one day to do a month’s worth of cleaning. However, it also sounds like an easy way to just put that one day off…after all you already have for a whole month!
Daily tasks sound like a great way to break up projects into smaller easier tasks but it also sounds a bit overwhelming to have so much to do each day.
Time Batching Pros
Here are the pros of doing time batching.
- 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 work which is a major time saver.
- You are able to brain dump and get all of those ideas out and tasks flow into the next easily.
- You can get more done in the month if each day you batched something different.
As you can see there are great pros to this method. You are able to check big things off your list. A month’s worth of work can be done in one week. For example, if you were a blogger and 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!
This method isn’t just for bloggers but I am using them as an example. But for another example, we have a small lawn care business that we run on the side. I could use this batch method with our lawn care business as well.
Instead of doing one or two yards a day, we time batch our yards into one day a week. For that one day, we will do between 10-15 yards.
Time batching any work seems great because 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.
Time Batching 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 you’re behind.
- If you go too long in between working you may feel disconnected. For example, if you do one task one day a month, you will go 29-30 days in between that task.
- If you dedicate one whole day to one thing then other things may not get done.
To me, this 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 have to do each day that it feels overwhelming because I would get backed up on those.
Plus, 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. Moms working full time don’t have the option to dedicate a whole day to one task. Or moms with little ones that need their attention, they don’t have this option to time 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?
Like I said with the lawn care example it makes sense to batch work. Instead of getting all dirty every day for only one or two yards, we batch it to only one day a week.
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.
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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 mind.
- 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 at least. This way when life gets crazy I was still able to make progress.
Also, this helps me be able to choose which small project I can put into each time frame I have blocked off!
Of course, just like time batching, 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 process 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?
Thanks for reading!
Vanessa