How to use batch working to post consistently
You’ve probably heard of meal prepping, right? Where you spend just a few hours a week preparing your meals for the entire week instead of taking time every day to get your meals prepared.
The theory is that if you spend time doing everything at once, you’ll save time by not repeating tasks over and over.
Cooking two whole chickens at once takes less time than cooking them separately through the week. You’re cooking once, you’re doing the dishes once, but you enjoy the benefits of your work twice as long.
Batch cooking for me has meant the difference between wondering what’s for dinner—and invariably breaking down to pick up take out several times a week—and staying on track with a meal plan. It has meant less food waste and less time out of my day to create something healthy to eat.
While the trend has been around for several years, a lot of people still have a hard time with it. And no wonder! Did you know the average time spent on a task before losing focus is only 1 minute and 15 seconds?!
Living in a task where multi-tasking is seen as a badge of honour means that we’re spending so much time flipping between tasks—we can’t just focus on one anymore!
Luckily for you and me, your brain can be easily retrained to focus for more extended periods. You can start it with batch cooking, but what other tasks can you batch together to make more room in your week?
BATCH CONTENT CREATION
Batch content creation is my favourite form of batch working, but before I get into that, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what batch working entails.
As per the brilliant Jenna Kutcher who sings from the rooftop about batch working “Batch working is highly-focused, topic-specific forms of working. It is dividing your workflow into different days/hours of ONE TOPIC instead of jumping around from task to task.”
Let’s use podcasts as an example. There are two standard ways of keeping up with the constant content creation around a podcast.
Every week you would record an episode, talk to a guest, edit the episode, upload an episode from last week, create promotion graphics for the next week—it would go on and on every week.
Or, you could record a whole 4-8 weeks of episodes on one very long day. You’d pass that content off for editing, all at once. You’d get the graphics for all the episodes, all at once. And then all you would have to do is schedule them when they’re due.
If you’re a person who does NOT work well in a structured environment, you might have to accept that your life would be a constant stream of work to have a podcast. You might even decide not to do it.
But if you can plan ahead and batch your work? The amount of work is reduced significantly for that same piece of high-converting content.
Whether you are creating podcasts, blog posts or content for social media— it’s much easier to do the same task for 5 podcasts, 5 blog posts or 5 social media posts than doing them individually.
It might feel overwhelming to get started, but you really are just doing the same tasks, but giving them a focused block of time.
Instead of thinking of one post/blog/podcast at a time, you are thinking about 15 to 20 topics at a time! That means that you can start planning ahead for when you’re writing/creating, vs when you’re publishing and when you’re promoting—all while using a fraction of the time.
IS BATCH WORKING FOR EVERYONE?
Saving time and having a constant stream of attention-getting content sounds fantastic, but is it for everyone?
No. Honestly, it’s not for everyone.
If you do not have a blog, podcast, active social media account, product or service you’re promoting, or something along those lines, then batching work might not be up your alley.
Batch working is best for people:
Pushing out content regularly: blogs, Instagram captions, weekly emails, Youtube videos, captions.
Find themselves spending too much time on ‘busy work.’
Have a lot of other responsibilities in their work, on top of engaging with social media, creating blog posts and answering comments on review platforms.
Business owners of any kind. (We never have enough time, after all)
HOW DOES IT WORK
STEP ONE: FIGURE OUT YOUR PRIORITIES!
Deciding what is most important to your business always comes first. Not everyone has the same priorities, so figuring out what you need to do to make batch working fit into your weekly schedule comes first.
Look at all the tasks you’re doing for your business. Which of these tasks is making you money? If you know that your blog posts are building your reputation and bringing in new leads, that would be priority #1. And then maybe social media would be priority #2 because it’s what you need to keep in contact with your audience.
Once you know what tasks are directly related to your income and need to be done consistently, choose the 3 - 5 top most important items to get started with.
In our case, we’re going to prioritize social media!
STEP TWO: LOOK AT STEPS THAT GO INTO A PROCESS
With your list of 3 - 5 items from above, write down a list of all of the steps you take to make each of those tasks happen.
In this example, I am batch writing social media content for a tourism client. We’re lucky to have time in the winter while their accommodations are closed to create a lot of content that can be used all summer.
The steps to working on this task are:
Choosing themes for daily posts
Determining what platforms we will post on
Choose pictures to use
Create an image and/or templates in Canva
Write content for the specific posts
Determine what hashtags to use
Figure out appropriate links
Create posts
Schedule
When you look at that list, there are a few things that you can batch work on to make the task overall easier. Here is how I would batch these tasks:
Looking at my content strategy, I would write all my daily themes for 6 - 12 months and plot them into the content calendar. (Not sure what a content calendar is, check out our post here)
I would also determine the platforms the client is using in that first session.
Next, I would create images or review images from my client and have a month of images at a time created.
Then I would write all the content for my client’s posts at once so they can approve all of them at once for the next month.
I would choose hashtags and links for the approved posts at the same time.
And finally, with all that done, I would create and schedule the posts a month at a time.
If it looks like a lot of work in batches, imagine how much time and energy would be spent on the same tasks if you didn’t do them all at once!
Using a content calendar and creating posts on a schedule saves me time and allows me to communicate with my client and have their approval on everything going out. All that extra time will enable us to form a partnership rather than scrambling to make sure content is ready for the summer.
STEP THREE: SET A SCHEDULE
Now it’s time to organize your batching and figure out what works best for you and your business. Take out a calendar, look at essential deadlines and map out what you want your batching to look like.
You might be someone who chooses to work on a batch of work on certain days. I like to batch schedule content for my own business on Mondays, for example. Others want to choose the last day of the month to do all of their scheduling at once. Choose whatever works best for you!
Eventually, your batch work will come naturally, and you won’t even think twice about it! Monday will be creating canva images, Tuesday will be creating Instagram captions, Wednesday will be finding hashtags, etc. etc. etc.
STEP FOUR: FOCUS AND GET IT DONE!
The most crucial step here is to actually get the work done! We all love the feeling of having a solid plan, but batch working doesn’t work unless you do!
Aim to commit yourself to work for a set amount of time. Turn on a timer, move your phone out of the room, turn off the wifi—whatever you need to do to make this work for you. When the time comes to work on your batch of work, make sure you honour the time you’ve set aside to work on things.
GET STRATEGIC
Planning your content in advance will give you more time to get strategic with your time. Thinking ahead will provide you with more opportunities to spend time interacting with your audience and moving your business forward instead of reacting day-to-day.
It’s time to ditch that multi-tasking lifestyle and get your time back!
Need help with batching your social media content? I have one space left for coaching, click here to get in touch.