Batching similar tasks
Jonathan Levi
Lesson Info
11. Batching similar tasks
Lessons
Class Introduction: Structure & how to succeed
03:57 2Why do things quicker
05:14 3Where most people spend (or waste) their time
04:48 4Quiz: Chapter 1
5The power of preparation
03:11 6Having clear priorities & goals - and making them "SMART"
07:38Organizing priorities with the Priority Star Exercise
09:19 8Setting deadlines & and making them real
04:18 9The Pareto Principle - our secret to being effective
03:57 10The "Bad" kind of multitasking, avoiding distractions, and meditation
07:43 11Batching similar tasks
03:48 12The "Good" kind of multitasking & the wheel of life
04:26 13Planning for structured rest periods
05:57 14Using small chunks of wasted time effectively
04:16 15Quiz - Chapter 2
16Just how much time are you wasting on your computer?
06:44 17Automating meeting scheduling
04:56 18Text expansion - stop typing the same things over and over
04:24 19Speaking is faster than typing - and clicking
05:33 20Using custom gestures to speed up common tasks
03:43 21Launchers - act without doing
06:02 22Wasting less time reading and sorting through email
03:41 23Automating simple, repetitive tasks effectively across the web
05:03 24Watching lectures, videos, and podcasts faster
04:48 25Quiz: Chapter 3
26Getting fit in fewer hours
04:10 27Spend less time cooking
04:02 28Sleeping less and feeling better
06:00 29Quiz - Chapter 4
30Monitoring your finances automatically
04:30 31Paying bills automatically
05:29 32Quiz - Chapter 5
33Some things just aren_t worth your time
11:21 34Thoughts & tips on "outsourcing"
06:18 35Speeding up decisions
09:14 36Speeding up communication
05:12 37Splitting Time Into “Maker” and “Manager” Days
05:06 38Quiz - Chapter 6
39What we've learned, conclusion, and congratulations
02:51 40Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Batching similar tasks
now that we have an understanding of how important it is to avoid the confusion and disorientation of switching between tasks or threads. Let's add to that fact that there is an inherent amount of setup for each task. For example, you wouldn't put on your workout clothes, stretch out, do 20 pushups, shower, get changed and then repeat the process a few hours later to do your 20 squats, would you? Of course not. That would be a ridiculous waste of time. And so you do the push ups and squats and certainly some other exercises all at the same time. So why do you do this with email? Why do we open up our email every hour or even worse? Get a notification for every single email and deal with that email the moment that it comes in in principle, how is this any different from changing in and out of your workout clothes for every push up you do or running the dishwasher for every dish individually. We rarely think about it, but our day is literally filled with little time wasters just like thi...
s. Fortunately there's a solution, it's called batch ng and best of all, you already know how to do it when we batch similar tasks together. It allows us to advertise or divide the setup and recovery time involved with those tasks across more items. A great example of matching is what you are already doing with your laundry, you probably don't do a load of whites and a load of colored laundry every time you have one of each. No, you wait until you have enough of each type of laundry to do a full load, advertising not only the water and the electricity to run the washing machine, but also your time to hang the laundry, fold it and put it away. Indeed, since we've already learned how important preparation is, it's a huge shame to have to do that preparation more than once. And since we've already talked about the hidden costs of mentally switching tasks, we now understand why batch NG tasks is so important. Let's think for a moment, what are some tasks that we could batch to make them more efficient? Well, to start with, there is the example we mentioned before emails. What if instead of responding to every email as it comes in or even checking your inbox every hour you batch your emails into one or two sessions per day or how about errands? What if instead of running out for just the grocery store, we waited until the dry cleaning was ready and then we picked both of them up at the same time, we picked the kids up from school. Too easy for you. No problem. Let's go for a more advanced one. How about instead of cooking just one meal at a time, you did the food prep or even all of the cooking for the entire week. You'd surely save on energy and water. And I think you'll find that you'll save a ton of time too. But we'll cover that later. There's a lot of different ways that you can utilize batch ng to increase your efficiency from simple things like running things up and down the stairs in your house, in batches to more complex forms of matching, like pushing all of your meetings to the same place and day of the week. Later on in the course, we'll come back to a lot of these ideas which draw upon the basic theory of matching and we'll explain in more detail how you can actually use it for now. I want you to start scrutinizing the work you do every single day and looking for opportunities to make things more efficient by bashing. I guarantee you they are lurking there in your everyday habits. You just have to look to find those low hanging fruit.