How to Get Ahead in Your Business with Batch Working

Photo by Alice Boagey

Hey, babes! I’m excited to chat with you about batch working. Maybe this is something you’re already familiar with or maybe it’s something you’re hearing just now and are thinking ‘whaaaaa?!’ Whichever camp you fall into, I wanted to take some time to give you a peek behind the curtain and share how I’ve been able to get the ball rolling with batch working in my business.

First I want to say that it’s never a good time to start batch working— you just gotta decide today is the day you get started. JUST DO IT. I’ll say it once more for the babes in the back: Just do itttttt.

I was inspired after recording Natasha Samuel of Sol Studio’s Babe Behind The Brand podcast episode that went live this week (listen here or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play) and at the end of each episode, we host a mini workshop with our guest so you can take some of their expertise and apply it to your biz. Natasha chose for her workshop topic to be on batch-working.

The topic was helpful to me because batch working, especially as someone who creates a ton of content, is something that I knew would be a game changer for me but I just never got around to giving it a go. I hope my story of how I began changing my mindset from ‘one at a time’ to ‘4 or more at a time’ has been integral in your journey, too!

Questions or ideas on batch working? Drop ‘em in the comments.

Here’s how I took Natasha’s 3 tips and have started batch working like a boss (and you can, too!):

Photo by Christina Jones Photography

1 // Pick one thing to begin with

I decided to work on my podcast episodes first. After recording Natasha’s ep., I had another 3 episodes in the cannon. So instead of working on one at a time each week like I had been in the past, I kicked things up a notch and spent 5 hours batching the following: getting the episodes scheduled in my hosting service Libsyn, drafting & scheduling each episode on our website under the ‘podcast’ tab, creating an audiogram to promote each episode, and getting an email scheduled to each guest with links so she can share once her ep. is LIVE!

Whew! It’s a lot of work but it saves me time and energy in the long run because for the next 4 weeks I just had to focus on prep work for future recordings and finishing up marketing for each episode as it went live. #winning

Photo by Christina Jones Photography

Step 2 // Tackle some social

Next I decide to batch up some quote graphics. I bet you’ve noticed in our Instagram feed that every 6th photo is a badass quote from a woman entrepreneur! I used to make them one at a time. Which in theory only takes a few minutes, but in reality I need to stop what I’m doing, find a quote, finish up the graphic in Photoshop, then export it. It takes more than a few minutes and not being able to post what I want because I first need to create a graphic in order to keep up with the every 6th photo rule was becoming exhausting.

SO, to change things up I pulled 14 quotes from past blogs with a sprinkling of quotes from women I admire like Jameela Jamil and Leona of Indie Roller (she’s been a HUGE inspiration from a long time and I’ll be recording a podcast with her in August! stay tuned!!) I now have enough quote content for the next 3.5 months or so. How rad is that? And it only took me 1 hour.  

Photo by Christina Jones Photography

Step 3 // Get Serious

My third plan of attack for becoming a batch worker was my digital branding & business topics blogs. I aim to have at least 1 new, helpful blog live each week. I typically come up with them on the spot based on what I’ve noticed that’s top of mind for fellow entrepreneurs in our membership or on social media. But, again. In theory this is great, but in reality it’s keeping my productivity lower than it could be.

To combat this, I organized the existing digital branding and business blogs I’ve drafted and created 8 more for a total of 12… that’s right, 12 (!!) blogs. After I drafted more blogs, I chose photos to go with them and created social media posts to promote each one. Boom! #likeaboss  

Blogging takes a lot more time than social media, so this process took 3 days (if you combine the time I spent drafting the original handful of blogs and account for some time in-between to answer emails, on-board new members, & eat lunch, ha) and now I have weekly blog content ready to go for the next 3 months.

Note: I totally get that you might have read this and went “5 hours?! Where did she find 5 hours? Everything is give & take.

I turned my phone off to avoid distractions and decided that I needed to spend this week on prepping for the fact that I’m going to be out of the country for a month (working remotely, but I still want a flexible schedule so I can explore!) and I have been wanting to get out of the grind of working on one piece of content at a time.

So I made the executive decision (‘cuz I’m the boss and that’s allowed!) and now the time I’ll save creating the content piece by piece over the next 3 months can be spent on other things, like strategic planning for 2020, generating membership leads, and breathing a little easier. You can do it, girl! You run your business and not the other way around.