How Batch Work Can Simplify Your Life
What is batch work? Batch work is where you take a small task that you have to do often and do all of them at once. In a way, this is taking things off of your plate. Once you have completed something for the entire month you no longer have it on your to do list.
This is a huge time saver. For example, doing something that I do once a week might take 5 minutes. If I do it for an entire month it make only take 10 minutes or less, rather than 20 minutes. This always cuts my time in half.
Prepping for things in advance has been one of the simple things that has given me margin in my life. It has taken quite a few things off my list that I used to have to do so much more often.
Here are a few examples of my batch work tasks. Many of these might not pertain to your life at all, but my hope is that they will stir a thought of things that you can add to your batch list.
Vitamins - I used to divide my vitamins out for the week and now I do this for an entire month. It take just a small extra amount of time. I only have to take the bottles out once and I can see in advance what I’m going to need to reorder. It is SO easy for me to keep up this healthy habit of taking these when all I have to do is walk to the basket and grab the little pack of my daily vitamins. (I also do this weekly for my kids in a divider you can find HERE. This makes it super easy for my kids to take their vitamins and I can see if they have taken them for that day rather than relying on their memory.)
Song Sets - I am over the Worship Team at our church. When I create song sets I use several apps and 2 ipads. It’s a bit of a process. Setting these up for a month takes just a little more time than doing this on a weekly basis. This also gives the others on the team the opportunity to be better prepared. Another benefit is this allows room for emergencies. Sometimes things come up, so it’s always good to be prepared ahead of time.
Menu plan - I don’t always do this for the entire month, but when I do I’m thankful! I definitely do this each week. This little task saves me so much time and stress. Check out the blog post and video HERE for how I menu plan.
Birthday cards and gifts - I plan to do a lengthier video on this later. We know when a birthday is coming up, they happen every year. :) I try to look a month ahead and go ahead and be sure I have birthday cards and gifts. This is so much better than scrambling at the last minute and it removes the guilt I feel for not being prepared for a birthday.
School plan for my kids - My daughter is now back in person at school, but my son does an online school. Yes, they have a daily schedule, but we also have a good bit of flexibility with his school. We prefer a 4 day school week. So rather than sitting down each morning to determine what he is doing for the day, sometime over the weekend I print out his lessons and plan what he needs to do Monday through Friday. This eliminates the “Mom! But I don’t know what to do next!” ;)
School clothes for my daughter - Each weekend I choose her clothes for the week. This makes each morning go so smoothly! She normally has a 4 day school week. I choose 4 outfits, including the hair bow and shorts or leggings for her to wear under her dress. I also add her Sunday dress to make my life even easier. On the days we are home I usually let her choose what she wants to wear from her category of “play clothes.”
Ironing - I do NOT love to iron. However, half the battle is getting out the ironing board and heating up the iron and then letting it cool and taking it all back down. Sometimes I still have to quickly iron a shirt - but if I have a few extra minutes I grab a few other things in my closet that need to be ironed and then that denim shirt I love but gets oh so wrinkled is ready to wear next time I want to wear it! I also do this for my daughter’s dresses. She has 6 church dresses currently and I rotate them. When she has worn the last one, I iron them all at once and start the rotation again. This saves so much time.
Work emails. I work with our marketing director on the emails I send out weekly. We have developed a system where we work ahead and schedule these out. Now, instead of having a weekly meeting, we have a monthly meeting and we know these emails are ready to go a month in advance. This is only one of the ways I use batch work for tasks on my job. I am sure you can think of many ways to use it with your job as well.
Sit down and list out your tasks. Things you do at home and at work. I imagine there are quite a few things that you find yourself doing on a daily or weekly basis that you can move to a batch list.
What do you plan to add to your batch work tasks?