Don’t let batch processing get in the way of building momentum

One of the earliest pieces of productivity advice I came across was the concept of grouping similar tasks together, and doing it all in one go. This is known as “batch processing.”

For example, if you’re going to read and respond to your emails, don’t do them one at a time throughout the day. Make an hour or two intentionally, and review them all in that session.

The nice thing about batch processing is it minimizes interruptions and creates a condition for you to get into a flow state. “Working on a task continuously is simpler than stopping and picking it up later,” I wrote at Lifehacker. “It takes time for you to focus and zone in on your previous train of thought.”

When people prepare their meals for the week, they’re doing a version of batch processing: they cook seven days’ worth of meals, instead of one meal per day for seven days.

On paper, batch processing makes a lot of sense. Why not batch everything?

It needs time: The main cost of batch processing is the amount of free time it requires. In order to work on a large batch of tasks, you need a large batch of time. That doesn’t happen very often.

It creates inertia: Another drawback to batch processing is doing the task feels more difficult. One way to describe this would be that inertia tends to build up. For example, when Rohan Rajiv batched five weeks’ worth of dry cleaning, he found that inertia built up week over…