Why Every Entrepreneur Needs Batch Days + Examples
Introducing the ultimate productivity strategy to get more things done while leaving your mental energy intact: batch days!
You may have heard about batching before, but do you understand how to apply the concept to entire days in your business?
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In this article, I’m revealing my own batch day strategy, which has been a gamechanger for my business (and my mental wellness as an entrepreneur).
Get ready to say goodbye to the hustle, burn-out and stress, and say hello to confidence, productivity, abundance and alignment in your business!
Why Every Entrepreneur Needs Batch Days + Examples Of What To Do On Your Batch Days
One of my business friends recently sent me the following message:
“My biggest issue is being able to work out a solid plan to tackle #allofthethings and actually do them. I feel like I have so many things I need to get done. I’m running around a little aimlessly and only getting everything half done.”
And I completely get where she’s coming from. I remember feeling like this not too long ago.
Drowning in my never-ending to-do list, lying awake at night thinking of all the things I didn’t get done that day, wishing I could somehow tack an extra 3 days onto my work week.
Whether your business is a side-hustle or your full-time job, I’m sure you’ve learned that you have to be incredibly particular about how you spend your time.
There just aren’t enough hours in the day to be everywhere and do everything and please everyone.
Today I want to share a time management system I’ve recently implemented in my own business that’s helped hugely when it comes to staying on top of my biz tasks.
Two words for ya: Batch Days.
What is batching?
Batching is when you spend a big chunk of time focused on one specific task, instead of jumping back and forth between a bunch of different things.
Essentially, batching means doing things in bulk.
Just like you might meal prep enough ingredients to last you three days, you can do the same thing when it comes to your business by spending a large chunk of time powering through one specific task.
Here’s an example. Instead of sitting down and writing a new blog post, then editing that post, finding images for it, and scheduling the social media promo all back-to-back…
- You might spend an entire afternoon writing four blog posts.
- Then you’d spend the next day editing those four blog posts, the day after that taking and editing photos for the posts, and so on.
Doing tasks in bulk lessens the cognitive load on your brain by not forcing it to switch between different modes of thinking all day long.
When you focus on one type of task (writing, taking photos, scheduling social media) for a large chunk of time, you’re able to produce more content, more quickly, and using less brainpower.
Do I have you convinced yet? 😉
So What Are “batch days”?
A batch day is when you focus on one type of task for the entire day. For example, Mondays might be only focused on social media, or only on content creation.
You simply put your head down and get that one thing done, rather than jump from different tasks.
This is a huge productivity hack, that will save your brainpower and personal energy, rather than exhausting yourself by having to change course throughout the day.
On a batch day you simply relax, focus on one type of task, and allow your creativity to flow.
For example, you could decide to devote an entire day every week to writing blog posts, instead of just a few hours or one afternoon.
Then you might devote another day in your week to marketing, visibility, and outreach.
The key is to make batching work for you and your schedule.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all system, but once you figure out how to make it work for your business, you’ll love it.
A Week Of Batch Day Examples
Here are the five batch days I’ve used in my business:
1. Content Creation Days
Something every business needs is more content. Content that attracts your ideal customer, educates, inspires and converts them to buy your offers.
But truly good content requires thoughtful planning and a strategy. That’s why giving yourself a dedicated day just to focus on content can be so empowering!
Content creation days may be focused on:
- Batch writing and scheduling blog posts
- Batch writing and scheduling emails to your list
- Batch recording podcast episodes
- Batch-recording several Instagram reels / TikTok videos
Here’s a tip that has really helped me create content for my Tik Tok and Instagram Reels:
Batch recording a month’s worth of videos in one afternoon! I will set up my camera, and just record 20 minutes of myself moving around, wearing different outfits.
I will have no idea what these videos will be used for in the moment, and that’s OK!
But, I will have these videos as a bank of content to pull from my drafts folder later, as I can easily just add a text overlay and some audio later on.
I highly advise this strategy, as opposed to trying to come up with ideas and shoot and publish videos on the fly every day.
Check out my Instagram @HerPaperRoute and TikTok @HerPaperRoute
2. Social Media Days
After I’ve banked some content, I’ll take a day to batch-schedule it to my social media.
On these days I schedule my social media for the week, as well as create social media graphics, track my social analytics, and engage on my social platforms.
I’ve found that it is helpful to batch create some Instagram templates in Canva, create a few posts from them, and upload them to Planoly.
Once uploaded to Planoly, I write the captions, set hashtags, plan my feed and schedule everything out.
It’s really easy and a quick process.
For my Facebook page, Facebook group, LinkedIn and Twitter I use this scheduling tool, which recyles my posts after a few weeks or months.
3. Product Development Days
Product development days are my favorite batching days of all!
These days are devoted to:
- creating lessons for my courses and group coaching program
- creating new digital products such as ebooks and lead magnets
- planning my virtual summit
Your product development days could also be used as launch and promotion planning days, when you don’t have development work to do.
Staying on top of your launch strategy is equally as important as the products themselves.
4. Admin & Outreach Days
Honestly, the admin & outreach day is my least favorite batch day.
Even though I outsource 90% of the admin duties in my business to my team, there are still some admin things that require my personal input.
And those things get done on my batch admin day.
They generally involve answering emails, and setting up collaborations with brands, sponsors and other entrepreneurs.
5. CEO Day
This is usually my Friday, and I like to leave it relatively open and flexible. People can not book you for a meeting or expect an email reply on your CEO day!
If I have a big launch or webinar coming up, I’ll use this day to plan and prep for that.
I might also use it to attend to my monthly CEO days or quarterly plan days.
If I don’t have anything big lined up, I let myself choose any area that I want to focus on that day (content creation, social media, etc.) and then run with it.
Or, I’ll just take the day off and chill.
Batch Day Tips
Keep in mind that the themes you choose for your batch days will vary depending on the tasks that you do in your business.
Everyone’s business is different and everyone has different things going on.
As a general rule, you can follow these two steps when choosing your batch day themes:
- Figure out which tasks you do over and over again every week
- Figure out how much time you need to spent on each of those tasks per week
- Outsource the majority of those tasks
- Perform the remaining tasks that you enjoy, on set batch days
For example, you may have admin tasks that you need to complete every week.
This may include answering emails, responding to blog comments, and editing your blog posts.
However, they don’t require much time. So you don’t need to spend an entire day every week on those tasks.
So instead of having an entire Admin batch day, you might combine it with another theme from your list.
Moral of the story: This is a take-what-you-want buffet, not a set-menu dining experience.
You need to figure out the main tasks you repeat over and over in your business, and then from there, you can create a schedule to outsource and then batch those tasks.
Why A Flexible Batch Days Schedule Is Awesome
Here’s another tip. It’s one tiny tweak that made all the difference for me with having successful batch days…
As you set up your Batch Days schedule, you might intend on set days of the week. For example, “Marketing Mondays” on Monday, “Content Wednesdays” etc…
But if you are like me, a rigorous schedule like that might get you hung up!
At first, I tried having a set schedule where Mondays were always my Content Creation days, Tuesdays were always my Social Media days, and so on. But I quickly learned that having such a strict schedule doesn’t work so well for me.
When I wake up on a Monday morning, the fact that I know I’m “supposed” to knock out a bunch of blog posts and emails that day can sometimes leave me feeling a bit stuck and uninspired.
When I made this discovery, I came up with one tiny shift for my own batch days and now I’m completely obsessed with them.
Here’s what I did:
I started by creating a list of the 5 main batch days I wanted to have every week no matter what, but then I let myself switch up the order every week.
Mondays are usually my content creation days, but if I’m not feeling inspired to write that day, I might bump content creation to Wednesday and choose a different theme for my Monday.
The same goes for social media, admin, or anything else.
My motto is: As long as it gets done sometime this week, I’m happy.
This more laidback approach has made all the difference for me.
I finally feel like I’ve found a system that works, keeps me on top of everything, and has even allowed me to get ahead on my work.
Will you be trying this Batch Day Strategy Out?
Have you tried batching or batch days before? Are you going to try it out after reading this post? What adjustments do you need to make so batch days will work for your biz?
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