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 week. Instead, he decided to make a dry cleaning trip every two weeks. 

“It is infinitely easier to get them done two weeks at a time vs. to let them pile up and do them all in one go four or five weeks later,” he writes. It doesn’t make sense on paper—make twice as many trips to the dry cleaner?—but it just feels easier to do.

It distracts you from current tasks: During the time you’re not doing the task—when you’re waiting for the tasks to batch—you’ll also experience the psychic toll of knowing that there’s a big batch of stuff to be done. If you miss the window, then you’ll need to find another large chunk of time to do it. Remembering one thing isn’t a problem, but the accumulation of these batched tasks can feel painful. These thoughts clutter up your mind, popping up as you watch your tasks remain incomplete (your metaphorical laundry pile grows!).

It requires set up: I used to think that I would be more efficient at writing once a week. However, unplanned things happened—it took me a long time to get in the groove, I wouldn’t feel energized, or I still wouldn’t have enough time. Instead, I just write every day.

It can be an excuse for procrastinating: Sometimes, I would want to batch process my edits—ideally finishing a couple of pieces in one session. However, I struggled to find the unbroken two-hour chunk of time throughout the day. It caused me to procrastinate, while “looking” or “trying to make” that unbroken chunk of time. I would’ve been way better off just editing in 15–30 minute increments. It would take some context switching, but if I took my breaks right, I would’ve made more progress with the draft and built momentum.

At the end of the day, batch processing should help you build momentum—not slow things down. I still batch a lot of things, but not everything. 

Rather, I realized that some things are worth practicing every day. For example, when I write today, it takes my brain much less time to start writing tomorrow—it’s already in the groove. Today’s writing sets me up to write more easily tomorrow. Because I’m not batching everything, it also creates more flexibility and spontaneity in my schedule.

Whatever you do, make sure that the way you’re batch processing doesn’t govern you—it should liberate you.