The benefits of time batching & how to do it
In this episode, Mary Giordano and I discuss the benefits of time batching.
By listening to this episode or reading the transcript below, you will learn how to save time and be more productive with your business.
Hello, and welcome to Thursday tidbits I’m so excited. For today I have a special guest with us, Hailey row, Hailey is a habits and business coach and strategist for online coaches and service providers. So I’m going to welcome Hailey on here in a second. Today we’re talking about time management. And life is busy, right?
We all know how busy life can be. And there’s things that we want to do and things that we want to accomplish and become successful at. But we never really feel like we have the time. And so today we are talking about Hailey and I are talking about time management skills that you can actually stick with. So this is a really great episode for Thursday tidbits. And I’m going to get Hailey on here. And we’re going to get started. So let’s get Hailey on the live. Hi, hey, Hailey, how’s it going?
I’m good. How are you doing?
I’m doing great. Thanks so much for being here today. And joining us.
I’m excited. How’s your day going? So far?
It’s cold. It’s like one degree here. And, it’s insane. It was like 65, a week and a half. And now it’s one. So it’s it’s freezing.
That’s why, yeah, I’m in South Carolina. And I’m from Chicago. So I escaped the cold for a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s brutal. I’m from Florida. So this is brutal for me.
Yeah, I get that. So I’m so happy that you’re here joining us. Do a brief introduction, I kinda introduced you but do a brief introduction. Let everybody know who you are. And we’ll get started.
Yeah, well, I’m certified as a Human Potential Coach, which happens to be why we can talk about time and habits and things like that. And I also do marketing and sales coaching, primarily focused on now and helping people with their mindset around that, in addition to their strategy around that.
Nice, awesome sounds like, you’re the you’ve got the whole scope. My you probably haven’t seen any of my lives, but my cat comes on every single time without fail. So
Oh, that is wonderful.
How to gain time management skills
So I always hear people are saying, I’m too busy for this, I’m too busy for that, or I don’t have time and this and that. So let’s get started about talking about time management skills, and why it’s so important to create discipline, and have and cultivate the skills to accomplish your goals.
Yeah, well, I think a lot of people feel restricted or like deprived or stressed when it comes to saying you should time batch or you should schedule your time or you got to have your, you got to keep your to do list and stay on schedule, you know, because people think, well, if I’m giving myself a schedule that I have to stick to that’s so not spontaneous, and it’s so like, restrictive. But I actually think it is the way to create more freedom in your life to give yourself hey, my scheduled free time today is at this time, because otherwise, things just don’t we all know, like, if we don’t time batch, if we don’t schedule if we don’t manage our time wisely, stuff just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t get done.
And being able to be someone who can stick to your word about how you said you’re gonna invest your day today. That is so powerful. It boosts your confidence so much because you become somebody who’s like, I honor my commitments. I know if I say I’m going to do something, I get it done. And that is like, it takes you to a whole nother level and your personal life and professional life.
Yeah, that’s so much positive reinforcement to I’m such a spontaneous person, that it has been so difficult for me to become disciplined and create, you know, batch my time and everything, but I’ve noticed that exactly what you just said like it actually. It’s so crazy how it kind of reinforces that spontaneity. It’s just weird how that works, you know, and that you are putting her down. She’s crying out my like, and how it makes you really feel like so disciplined and committed to your ultimate goal. So what are some tricks to get people started to do that when they’re like, I can’t do that that’s too restrictive or discipline.
Methods to plan your day wisely
Yeah, totally. Well, the first thing I want to add to that is it makes you chances are right now if you are spontaneous, if you don’t spend your time, plan your time, you find yourself sometimes somewhere where you’re with family or you’re doing work or whatever, and you’re constantly feeling that like I should be doing something else or like you’re not fully present with it and you’re not fully enjoying as much as you possibly could
And I think that’s, to me, that is not fun and free. Like, I would rather schedule it and know what’s coming and look forward to it and and like, have my stuff done beforehand. And then when I’m there, like be there, you know what I mean? Oh, I think a good place to start is, first of all, you just have to, I like to do an audit with my clients. So like, we use an app called toggle. And it’s spelled T O GGL. It allows you to, just like you would if you wanted to improve your nutrition, you first got to be aware of what you’re eating and how you’re so same thing with time, we got to get clear on how are you spending your time right now?
And what’s taking you a long time and all that stuff. So my suggestion would be to use that app for like, maybe a week, or if you can’t commit to that at least three days. And just on time, like so, for example, when you’re on a client call, click the timer’s press Start client client calls.
And then same thing with cleaning, cleaning, you know, like time yourself for a couple days. It’ll set rolling, right? Rolling, I You better click starter on that timer, because it is such a good reinforcement tool. If I’m switching tasks in the middle of something, I can’t do that, because then I got to go to my timer. Setup right brings you back into the now and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m scrolling again. Right. Yeah.
Right. So um, so yeah, I’ve had to do that before where, like, someone sends me a text or something, and I gotta go answer it. So I have to pause my timer. And you know, and then you cut yourself, and where’s your when when you do that to yourself? You’re tired really quickly? Yeah, because it’s switching tasks all the time.
So anyways, you time yourself, it sends you the summary at the end of the week via email, and you’re able to see, uh, wow, I spent like 13 hours on blah, blah, blah, this week. That’s crazy. Or maybe I could have somebody help me with that, or start to realize what are the gaps with how you’re spending your time currently?
The importance of realizing how you want to spend your time
Then we’ve got to talk about, well, how do you want to be spending your time, you know, maybe want to be hitting a target of I want to do physical activity XML of hours per week. So where’s that going to fit in? And what what do I need to let go up and re reconfigure to make time for that, right? So first, it’s just that step of awareness, then once you have your little awareness about what you’re doing, I suggest doing a huge brain dump every week about just what you feel you need to do.
And and before you even do that, though, I think it’s important to know your goals, because I think a lot of times people just schedule things that have like, aren’t even aligned with their priorities, who they want to be how they want to be spending their time, just to feel like important, or like they’re busy or whatever.
I think it’s more important to first have your goals in mind, then do a huge brain dump of all the things yes, you have to do obligations for you know, I got to drop off this at this place, I got to go to the post office, whatever, like just everything, including business aligned things, including things aligned with your goals, including family stuff, etc, huge brain dump, then you want to get into a system you can follow each week. And that system, in my opinion has to be accessible to you in all places.
So I recommend doing this on your phone Notes app. So you can access at any time so that when you get ideas about stuff you have to do or whatever, you can just add it to the list. I don’t recommend using any fancy spreadsheets or even writing it out on separate pieces of paper because then you’re going to have to rewrite or you wrote and pan and then it gets messy like I’m really like just keep it apps note putting on your phone. Everybody
wants it as pretty and perfect. And you know, the coolest app, you know and you’re right you can access it from and then you have an excuse. Right?
Exactly. Yeah, same Peter Peter said he does it in his notes. Same here I love that okay, so then you have to pray or put put the different categories so I recommend having a category for like top priority this must be done this week type of thing or there will be major consequences. Having a category that’s like daily or weekly things that just stuff you have to ongoing have to do every single week. I always have to do my client calls. I always have to answer client support emails, it’s just a part of my life. Like it’s just a daily thing, right?
And then have a category that’s like second priority or like, you know, if I got this done in the next two weeks or so, two, three weeks when it wouldn’t be the end of the world that doesn’t need to be done this week. And then have like a Sunday list or not top priority lists, like, that’s where you put your ideas, your shiny object syndrome, things that are like, Oh, but I want to watch this webinar. But really, you don’t need to watch it right this second, right? So you put that on an emergency. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of things on my Sunday list get resolved themselves, like, I’ll look back, like that was taken care of, because I don’t need to deal with that anymore.
So then, so once you have the categories, then it comes down to your purse, this is where it gets a little personal, where we’re going to see what works best for you. So then it comes down to scheduling your day or your week, I’m a big fan of just like some people, time management experts say, oh, we should batch your whole week. And you should take the things on your top priority list and put them in the calendar and book when you’re going to do them for the whole week in advance around your other obligations, your appointments, your coaching calls, I’m sorry, I keep referring to coaching calls, because I might miss you know, your meeting.
Okay, so then, um, but so, so have account Google Calendar, which is like your regular appointments and stuff, you have to do pick up the kids and blah, blah, blah. And then you can work around that your top priority tasks. But personally, I don’t do that I don’t do the whole week in advance I do. I have my appointments booked and stuff. But then every day in the morning, I timed batch and organize what my day is going to look like.
And how I recommend doing this is first just writing down from your notes app list that you have, pick the things off of there that need to be done today. And that you’d love to do today. I first do my own brain dump just for the day like it would be really nice today if I could get these things done from my big giant master list.
And then I actually look at that and say, Okay, where’s that going to fit in? And Is that realistic, and break that down? So you want to make sure that your tasks that go on your to do list for today are specifically focused towards the end result? And small enough that we can know if it’s a yes or no if you did it. So in other words, you don’t want to have on your list today website. What does that mean? Like right, my website, edit the homepage, write the copy for the about page, like I don’t know what that means, right?
So rather than website you would write down, you know, today, I’m going to edit the about page, just change my bio and upload a picture, or whatever. So once you take a look at your brain of what you’d love to get done today, and you start like what’s top priority, and make it small enough, then you put in pencil in your appointments and obligations and stuff you have to do today.
And then around the blocks. Without that you put in the other stuff with the understanding that you need to include and be realistic about driving time, break time, dinner time, you know, but the right you need a cushion, the front end and the back end, right? Pretty, pretty well buffer and you want to be your own friend in this process, not a punisher or like unrealistic aihole to yourself. So it’s you’re not going to be like, I’m going to go from 7am to 11pm nonstop with no breaks. And like, you know,
I can’t repeat that time and time again, right factor at a time. And one quick thing to add is, if this is really important, then I’ll be quiet. But I know you’re doing great now, you really do not want to. Okay. So. When a lot of people are like, but I don’t know how long it will take for me to edit my about page or I don’t know how long this meeting is going to go. You get to decide how long something’s going to take. And. You can either break it down more so that you do know, like, Oh, I’m going to research today for 30 minutes, just how to edit a photo on my website or whatever.
Or you can decide it’s going to take you a certain amount of time. Include that buffer time because you know, something might go wrong, or it might not get saved or whatever, and stick to it. And. That’s the real challenge.
This is the opportunity to like become up level your life is to make a commitment. And be like that’s how long I said it’s gonna take it might not be perfect by the end, whatever I have at the end of this timing block is what I have. And it’s done.
Yeah. There’s that quote, if it takes if you give yourself three hours, it’ll take three hours. If you give yourself 30 minutes, it’ll take 30 minutes, right. So. The name of the name of the app is toggle with no e, right? Yep. Yeah, we got you got it, Hailey. So I have a quote, that’s so great. I love that. I love all the information you just provided. And all the tips I want to ask because this is a big thing for people. Procrastination. I know we didn’t talk about that. We were gonna talk about this. But topics come up when people are talking.
So what happens when your someday list ends up becoming your, you know, your by by acts that are on accident becomes your your emergency list, right? Like, checking this checking that because people default to those. I want to say like just routine habits that they don’t even realize they’re doing when they’re on autopilot. And it kind of takes over their day like scrolling, right? checking their email, checking all that stuff.
Oh, yeah, well, I love that you brought this up. And I think that it’s, you have your nice list, you have your time manage, I think now here comes the hard part, you have to actually follow it. So you come up with all the reasons why the other things on your list are more attractive, and you should put those first, or you want to scroll social media, because we want to avoid unpleasant emotions. And sometimes the things on our to do list aren’t super fun all the time, right.
So my suggestion would be to, when you catch yourself in that moment of like, oh, I want to jump to something else, or whatever. I think you are actually creating more work for yourself, and you’re just delaying the feeling of discomfort, and you’re still gonna feel the feeling of discomfort either, either, right? So for example, if if you’re scrolling social media, it’s not that you might feel good in that moment, but you’re just adding more work for yourself, which is the complete opposite reason of why you were scrolling in the first place.
So you’re scrolling because you don’t want to work. And so when you’re scrolling, you know, you’re just doing the opposite. You’re just like for you later and more delay, and you’re going to be more tired when it’s time to actually do the thing. So because chances are you end up doing it at some point, right? Like, it’s like, if you don’t want to file your taxes in, you don’t feel like it, but the deadline comes you always do it. How pleasant? Do you want to make that for yourself? Get it done? Or wait till the last minute? Right? Um, so that’s the first thing it’s just catch yourself. Second thing is to provide be planned for that, like, rather than act like it just happen, I started scrolling I just took over me moving through the screen, I don’t know how it happened.
No, like, I like to have a journal question each morning about like, what obstacles might come up today? Or what might I feel like doing? When I don’t you know, and how will I prepare or plan or whatever. So sometimes that looks like well, I’ll, if I really want to scroll, like, schedule that in 15 minutes before bed, like whatever it were, it’s my reward for finishing this one thing or whatever.
So just like, be your own little coach in that arena about, I know, I’m gonna want to do this, here’s what I’m gonna tell myself or here’s a reminder, I’m going to set for myself or when I catch myself scrolling, my pattern interrupt practice is I get off and I, you know, whatever. Like, you have to have something for yourself. And I think if you are I don’t know where it was going without pause for a second. What What about you?
Well, I was just thinking, you know, because I’ve come across this a couple times I’ve tick tock and I don’t know if Instagram does it or not. I haven’t seen it in a while. But the apps actually have a video that says you’ve been scrolling for a long time, you know, like they let you know that you’ve been on there for a while. So it’d be awesome. If there was an app or some kind of tool in our phone that would alert you you could set it like if it if it catches me now I’m giving away some grand idea here. Yeah, billion dollar making.
But if there was some kind of tool in our phone that would just alert us some kind of alarm, you know, you set your phone alarm and say, I’m gonna allow myself to scroll for 10 minutes. And when that alarm goes off, you hear it and it distracts you and it says, Okay, it’s your trigger. Now I have to, you know, get off and go do whatever it is that is actually important. You know, right. Totally.
I love that idea. Yeah. And I think like, as long as I think also having like a top three day like, here’s the top three things no matter what I want it I need to do, and putting them as early on in the day as possible. So that even if you do even if you do scroll later or you do have something come up, you at least can rest assured like that those things are going to be done. And you know, I have a podcast episode about procrastination. There’s like three tips. So if anybody wants, I think it’s Hailey road.com/procrastination, if you want more on that.
But the last reason, though, why I think people procrastinate is because they want to be perfect in what they’re doing. So they feel like it’s such a daunting task and they feel dread about doing it. So naturally, you’re gonna want to escape that and not do it, right. Becoming somebody who can except that not every thing you produce today is going to be wonderful. And mistakes are gonna happen.
And you will mess up sometimes and not being like, when when you are scrolling like, Oh, it’s just like in diet world where they say like, if you had one piece of cake, it doesn’t mean now you should eat the whole entire cake for time though, right? So you catch yourself scrolling? Check yourself before you wreck yourself like, yeah, yeah, I’m scrolling. I’ve done it for five minutes. Is that really how I want to spend my time and catch yourself early? Bird and don’t act like all or nothing approach, just get back on track, you know?
Well, we are wired to avoid discomfort. And so, you know, procrastination has a lot to do with anxiety, just like you said, you know, being feeling discomfort. So I always say, I tell my clients and I preach to the choir, the more times you embrace discomfort, the easier it gets, because you’re just rewiring your brain to be okay with discomfort and it’s not discomfort anymore. And oftentimes, as comforting as scrolling may seem in the moment, it’s actually really negative for our brains. It is a discomfort because we come up all these emotions come up and feelings and judgment. And you know, we start comparing ourselves.
I mean, there’s so many things that go into the hole, scroll, right. And so we’re actually doing ourselves a disservice in the moment, we don’t even even realize it when we could feel good about ourselves and accomplish hard tasks versus maybe scroll and compare ourselves and judge and feel bad about ourselves, because we’re not doing the hard thing. Right.
Right. It’s all the things we make our to do list mean, rolling mean, that wears us out. So when it comes to actually accomplishing tasks, like tat, like, doing things isn’t necessarily that hard. It’s usually all the mental drama we have about those things like, Oh, I mean, if you wrote, you know, post video, it’s really easy to just post it right. But that’s like, well, what are people gonna think about it? Is it perfect enough? Did I put the thumbnail just right, like, and so then becomes exhausting. And so I have times time management is not even about the time you have in the time batching it’s about stop adding extra drama to things that don’t need to be so yes. You know, love
it. Love it. It’s so true. We create so much drama for ourselves. That is so unnecessary. You talked about earlier, the top three things for the day and get it done. I love the book. Eat the frog. I’m sure you know, huh? Yeah, yeah. So I highly recommend that to anyone who’s looking into you know, any kind of time management skills or anything like that. Read the book, eat the frog. It’s a small book, but it’s packed with insight and information.
It’s a great book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. essentialism. I think it’s like Greg, somebody. But he just talks about how like, literally so many things you are on your to do list you don’t even need to be doing. Like the book, the one thing where it talks about focus on that one major thing that’s going to move the needle forward the most focus, and constraint, it’s the whole theme of constraint, like you don’t need to have 12 different goals at one time affecting yourself to work on, you know, really pick something and go deep with it rather than wide.
Yeah, I love it. That’s awesome. Well, tons of valuable information. You drop lots of gems here, Hailey, I really appreciate it. Is there any anything else that maybe we didn’t cover one last tip or anything that you want to you know, hand out to people before we close out?
Hmm, I mean, I don’t think so. I think that if anybody has questions on the live feel free to share and I love some of the comments that have come in somebody is going to try toggle it looks like gonna try
it out. I’m gonna check that out. Because as a coach, you know, you would probably totally relate to this. Making reels and stuff. It’s like why have to scroll just to see what you know what sound is, you know, well, or whatever and then you just get lost. You forget what your end goal was, and you just get caught up in the right score. Yep,
I think yeah, and one thing that just triggered for me to bring up is I think a lot. Another reason why people really struggle with time management is because they are indecisive. So part half of time management is becoming a decisive person. So that thinking about Imagine if both options, whatever you’re trying to decide between could work out great. And both are equally, potential equal potential. Which one, do you like your reasons for doing more?
And which, knowing that which one do you like your reasons, for better and just decide and line up with your decision. So in other words, rather than overthinking, and being like, I need to know how this decision is going to work out before I make it, make the decision and just make it work, utilize it until you get there. So in other words, if you’re picking a goal to focus on, picking, pick it, make it the best choice you possibly can make and understand the byproduct effect, meaning you committing to that one, goal constraining focusing implementing it, etc.
And actually getting it accomplished, is gonna have a positive effect on the other areas of your life that you were trying to decide between if you wanted to focus on you know, so knowing that you can’t lose with that, versus if you never make a decision and you’re kind of happen to many different decisions, then your results are going to be more mixed. And you’re not going to be you know, it’s you’re not going to finish things, but you want it to finish. So I think that’s a really important point.
Yeah, I love that. It’s better to take action than to just waste time thinking about the how the how will figure itself out, right, you will figure it out once you decide to do it. This is kind of off topic, but it goes hand in hand. It’s all about people are so afraid to fail, right? They’re like they don’t take action because they’re afraid to fail. And I failure is quitting. We’re not starting, right. Like if you’re not taking action, you’re already failing, because you’re not yet, you know, and so I’m Yeah. Yeah. And so we can’t just not take action, because we’re too busy deciding, like you said, because I think that’s huge.
People are so indecisive. And they use that as an excuse, right to not do things. It’s a huge excuse, or they’re afraid that it’s not going to work out. Once you take the action and just start going. Now everything else is going to figure it out. You’ve already figured out everything in your life up to this point. Right, you’re gonna continue to do it right.
100%
I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, Hailey. Well, thank you so much. Let everybody know where they can find you. And how to connect with you. If they they want.
Yeah, cool. Thank you again, for having me. You guys can connect with me on Instagram, I’m at hailey_rowe, hai le y, underscore r o w e. I also am at haileyrowe.com I have a free niche marketing training. And, you know, for your your followers, actually what they might like better is my three day consistency challenge. That’s at haileyrowe.com/consistency. And it gets you a little planner.
So if you try to plan you know, get give yourself some morning journal prompts. That’s something you can use to become more consistent in the new year. And I also have a free community where I met Mary actually. And it’s called Health Coach Nation and it’s mainly for coaches. But if your online service provider or something like that, trying to grow business trying to network, you can always be in there. And thanks again for having me.
Awesome. Yeah. So thank you so much, everybody. If anybody has any questions or comments or anything for either myself or Hailey, feel free to comment below and one of us will get back to you. Also, I always end with this if you want to be a guest here on Thursday tidbits with me. Shoot me a message. I’m looking for people for March and April. And everyone have a great rest of your day and happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Alright Hailey, thanks so much.
I’ll talk to you soon. Okay, bye bye.
Resources
- Complimentary Business Consult
- Health Coach Nation: Marketing, Business, & Mindset for Health Coaches
Find Hailey on Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
