Day 767: Thoughts on Batching
I’ve had several weeks where the IBS was rather bad. Even my medication didn’t work as well as before. The pain and discomfort weren’t constant, and it would stop every so often, but I would never know when that would happen.
Usually when I get a bad IBS flare-up, I’ll only do the bare minimum of work on those days. But when it appeared this flare-up was lasting more than a week, I tried to figure out ways to work around the pain. During brief spurts during the day when I felt better, I would do a little bit of work until the pain came back. I didn’t get as much done as I would have wanted to, but I managed to get much more than just the bare minimum. I considered it a win if I got over an hour done, but some days I got two hours. It’s been hard to do more since I not only have to battle the IBS pain, but also increased fatigue.
Since the number of hours each day that I can do my work have been reduced, I decided to look at other ways to rearrange my daily work schedule so that I can still get the important things done.
I have been re-reading Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, and I read about a researcher who does something called batching. Basically, he separates his schedule based on the task he wants to focus on, to the exclusion of everything else.
For example, he only teaches one semester, so that he can focus solely on that, then does research for the rest of the year so he can focus only on research during those months. On a more micro-level, he has days when he has his open office hours, but then he has several days where he closes his door and is not available so that he can work on his next research paper. He doesn’t come out until the paper is done, even if people come to his office and need to speak to him—he ignores any distractions.
The book suggests that doing focused, undistracted work enables you to get more done in less time. Rather than doing research and teaching and open office hours all at once, he segments his schedule so he only does one thing at a time.
This made me think about the concept of batching in my own work schedule. My Japanese study has to be done every day for it to be effective—I couldn’t only study Japanese for a few months and then not study for the rest of the year. I’d forget everything I learned within a week because my memory is terrible.
I could possibly apply batching to my marketing work. I know that I’m much more efficient when I do all my marketing at once, all in one or two days. However, I worry that I will procrastinate doing it since I don’t really like doing it very much in general (although I find I don’t mind doing it once I get started on it). I eventually decided to continue my practice of doing a little marketing each day because that’s the path of least resistance for me to get it done, even though it’s less efficient. I’d rather be a little inefficient than have to struggle against my tendency to procrastinate and risk not getting the marketing done at all.
When the researcher does his papers, (according to the Deep Work book) he does all his research, writing, and editing for a single paper/project over the course of several days of holing up in his office. It made me wonder if I should also practice batching in terms of my writing.
For a while, I was doing a little writing every day while I did the blocking for books 4 and 5. After I finished the blocking for books 4 and 5, I switched to half writing/half blocking every day. But recently I’ve been doing all writing and no blocking, since I’m trying to accommodate the fewer hours per day that I can work on account of my IBS.
If I do batching, then I should focus only on one thing at a time. In other words, I should focus on only writing books 4 and 5. Then after finishing writing, I should work on blocking book 6. When that’s done, I should focus only on writing book 6. And so on, for the rest of the series.
Earlier, I had been planning to try to finish all the blocking for all the books before I increased my writing time, so that I could focus solely on blocking for a chunk of time, then focus solely on writing. However, I also need to release books this year, so I started writing after I finished the blocking for book 5. I was having issues because I go confused when I wrote a scene in one time point in the series and then blocked another scene in another time point in the series, and I would have to constantly take care not to make continuity errors. But I realized that I can eliminate some of those continuity issues by blocking one book at a time, so I decided to try that.
According to this batching method, I shouldn’t be blocking and writing at the same time, even if I’m blocking one series and writing another series entirely (as I had originally planned to do, writing the Regency series and blocking my next series). And I realize that it would certainly be less mental exertion to not have to switch gears to a different series every day.
Theoretically, I also shouldn’t be doing one day of working on my Hawaii book a week, because it’s another shift of mental gears and another form of distraction. But because I’m writing in two different genres, I wanted to have something for my Contemporary readers to read, so that can’t be helped. It’s not ideal, but I just have to suck it up because I’m writing under two pseudonyms.
So that’s my plan for now—to focus only on writing books 4 and 5, then to block one book at a time and then write it. I’ll still do Japanese study and marketing every day, and I’ll work on my Hawaii book one day a week.
I know I’m still not very good at intense focus and concentration for long periods, so I’ll have to work on practicing that. I think I’ll try Pomodoros to force myself to focus and not be distracted.
*
I used the Pomodoro method to try to concentrate more today, and I think it worked well, although my writing speed was still not very fast. But I felt less distracted during my writing time.
It also helped that I ordered some gluten-free pastries from Etsy and was able to eat one during my writing time as a special treat. Having something good to eat while working seems to be a really good motivator for me to make me focus better, although the treats are expensive and quite a lot of calories.
Writing streak: 246 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 26 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 980 words
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 0
Email: time spent: 18 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 41 minutes
My takeaway for today: In order to help me focus more, I’ll batch my work as much as I can. I’ll write books 4 and 5, then block one book at a time and then write it. I’ll still do Japanese study and marketing every day, and work on my Hawaii book only one day a week.
Usually when I get a bad IBS flare-up, I’ll only do the bare minimum of work on those days. But when it appeared this flare-up was lasting more than a week, I tried to figure out ways to work around the pain. During brief spurts during the day when I felt better, I would do a little bit of work until the pain came back. I didn’t get as much done as I would have wanted to, but I managed to get much more than just the bare minimum. I considered it a win if I got over an hour done, but some days I got two hours. It’s been hard to do more since I not only have to battle the IBS pain, but also increased fatigue.
Since the number of hours each day that I can do my work have been reduced, I decided to look at other ways to rearrange my daily work schedule so that I can still get the important things done.
I have been re-reading Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, and I read about a researcher who does something called batching. Basically, he separates his schedule based on the task he wants to focus on, to the exclusion of everything else.
For example, he only teaches one semester, so that he can focus solely on that, then does research for the rest of the year so he can focus only on research during those months. On a more micro-level, he has days when he has his open office hours, but then he has several days where he closes his door and is not available so that he can work on his next research paper. He doesn’t come out until the paper is done, even if people come to his office and need to speak to him—he ignores any distractions.
The book suggests that doing focused, undistracted work enables you to get more done in less time. Rather than doing research and teaching and open office hours all at once, he segments his schedule so he only does one thing at a time.
This made me think about the concept of batching in my own work schedule. My Japanese study has to be done every day for it to be effective—I couldn’t only study Japanese for a few months and then not study for the rest of the year. I’d forget everything I learned within a week because my memory is terrible.
I could possibly apply batching to my marketing work. I know that I’m much more efficient when I do all my marketing at once, all in one or two days. However, I worry that I will procrastinate doing it since I don’t really like doing it very much in general (although I find I don’t mind doing it once I get started on it). I eventually decided to continue my practice of doing a little marketing each day because that’s the path of least resistance for me to get it done, even though it’s less efficient. I’d rather be a little inefficient than have to struggle against my tendency to procrastinate and risk not getting the marketing done at all.
When the researcher does his papers, (according to the Deep Work book) he does all his research, writing, and editing for a single paper/project over the course of several days of holing up in his office. It made me wonder if I should also practice batching in terms of my writing.
For a while, I was doing a little writing every day while I did the blocking for books 4 and 5. After I finished the blocking for books 4 and 5, I switched to half writing/half blocking every day. But recently I’ve been doing all writing and no blocking, since I’m trying to accommodate the fewer hours per day that I can work on account of my IBS.
If I do batching, then I should focus only on one thing at a time. In other words, I should focus on only writing books 4 and 5. Then after finishing writing, I should work on blocking book 6. When that’s done, I should focus only on writing book 6. And so on, for the rest of the series.
Earlier, I had been planning to try to finish all the blocking for all the books before I increased my writing time, so that I could focus solely on blocking for a chunk of time, then focus solely on writing. However, I also need to release books this year, so I started writing after I finished the blocking for book 5. I was having issues because I go confused when I wrote a scene in one time point in the series and then blocked another scene in another time point in the series, and I would have to constantly take care not to make continuity errors. But I realized that I can eliminate some of those continuity issues by blocking one book at a time, so I decided to try that.
According to this batching method, I shouldn’t be blocking and writing at the same time, even if I’m blocking one series and writing another series entirely (as I had originally planned to do, writing the Regency series and blocking my next series). And I realize that it would certainly be less mental exertion to not have to switch gears to a different series every day.
Theoretically, I also shouldn’t be doing one day of working on my Hawaii book a week, because it’s another shift of mental gears and another form of distraction. But because I’m writing in two different genres, I wanted to have something for my Contemporary readers to read, so that can’t be helped. It’s not ideal, but I just have to suck it up because I’m writing under two pseudonyms.
So that’s my plan for now—to focus only on writing books 4 and 5, then to block one book at a time and then write it. I’ll still do Japanese study and marketing every day, and I’ll work on my Hawaii book one day a week.
I know I’m still not very good at intense focus and concentration for long periods, so I’ll have to work on practicing that. I think I’ll try Pomodoros to force myself to focus and not be distracted.
*
I used the Pomodoro method to try to concentrate more today, and I think it worked well, although my writing speed was still not very fast. But I felt less distracted during my writing time.
It also helped that I ordered some gluten-free pastries from Etsy and was able to eat one during my writing time as a special treat. Having something good to eat while working seems to be a really good motivator for me to make me focus better, although the treats are expensive and quite a lot of calories.
Writing streak: 246 days
Regency series:
Editing: Time spent: 26 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 980 words
Writing-related business:
Regency research reading: time spent: 0
Email: time spent: 18 minutes
Marketing: time spent: 41 minutes
My takeaway for today: In order to help me focus more, I’ll batch my work as much as I can. I’ll write books 4 and 5, then block one book at a time and then write it. I’ll still do Japanese study and marketing every day, and work on my Hawaii book only one day a week.
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