49. Batching as a Business Owner

I've got some thoughts to share on batching because sometimes it’s a win-win and sometimes it’s a struggle bus situation.

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Transcript

[00:00:26] Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode 49, I'm sharing some thoughts on batching because sometimes batching is a win-win as a business owner, and sometimes it turns into a struggle bus situation.

[00:00:41] I had the honor last week to speak to a focused, motivated group of teacher authors about systems that can set them up for success at the start of a new school year. We talked about communication, we talked about how schedules relate to our goals, and we talked a lot about SOPs. I saw a flurry of people roll up their sleeves and start building incredibly impactful asana workspaces inside my course during the same time period

[00:01:10] I was in awe listening to all the big goals that TPT sellers are working on during this school year to support the world of education. If you ever have a space you'd like me to come deliver a training inside, please know you can reach out in the contact form on my website. I'll leave that link for you in the show notes.

[00:01:28] I wanted to mention these SOPs right at the start of this conversation when we talk about batching, because I think we often talk about these two topics separately. An SOP is a standard operating procedure. It's a list of all the details and steps that should be accomplished every time that type of event happens inside your unique business.

[00:01:51] It's a place where all the preferences, links, logins, and passwords are all gathered into one place, so the task can be done efficiently, effectively, and with consistent quality each and every time. And while we often think about SOPs as something that we create when we're preparing to hire help inside our business, I strongly encourage solopreneurs to leverage the power of SOPs for themselves. Explaining the task in a crystal clear way that someone else could follow

[00:02:21] will help you find so much clarity on how you want a task to be done inside your business. And when you follow your own SOP, the task will feel lighter and easier to accomplish. You might even find that you don't need to hire it out at all once you've made a proper SOP, and you'll likely see a higher level of quality when attacking the task using an SOP.

[00:02:44] So batching is a win-win strategy for me. It's a tactic I use inside my own business frequently. Let's talk about good, better, best for a moment and Explore A scenario where batching feels like a win-win. Good would be writing a task on your list on Monday to write a blog post.

[00:03:06] You know you need to do it, you know it's time, you have space, you know how long it takes, and so you write the task in your paper planner or on your Asana calendar. On Monday, I'm going to write a blog post. Better would be having that task include an SOP with your keyword research, your planning outlines, PD resources about blogging, and a step-by-step checklist on how to write a strategic blog post for your unique brand.

[00:03:38] Best would be using the momentum that you had when writing one blog post to write multiple blog posts, while all of the tabs and passwords are at your fingertips and the overall content spiderweb strategy is top of mind. All of those strategies get the blog post done. But as you write more blog posts, your systems improve over time, and you start to notice little glimmers of strategies that help the blog posts come out better and help them get done faster and help them actually make it to the finish line.

[00:04:16] we want to notice glimmers of things that are working so that we can make that the way we always do that task in the future. So when I'm armed with an SOP, I'm no longer writing a blog post just to check it off my list. Suddenly I can see the big picture of how this blog post will help me reach my business goals, and I can feel the excitement of bringing it closer to the finish line.

[00:04:40] And when that strategic energy is pulsing through my veins, I want to keep going. Starting the writing is the hardest part,

[00:04:49] but once I see progress toward the goal, I naturally want to keep going, and that's where the batching momentum comes into play. If I'm working on keyword research. I likely won't wanna stop after I found one single keyword. I'll likely wanna follow the rabbit trail for a bit and bank several options that I'm excited to write about because of how they connect to my big picture goals.

[00:05:14] And if you are working on outlining blog posts, you likely have that SOP right in front of your face reminding you how to optimize headers and structure a template post in WordPress. Taking the keyword research that is top of mind and filling in the shells of multiple outlines to find the best home and the best angle for each keyword opportunity that you uncovered.

[00:05:36] That's what will feel the most cup filling. When we can make a sizable step for it in the process and really see that our efforts brought us closer to our goals, that's when we feel the batching is a win. And some days that might mean we're working on outlines for multiple posts at a time to create some momentum to get us to those finishing steps faster.

[00:05:59] And for me image work is always slow. So whether I'm talking about finding, choosing, editing, and renaming photos, or I'm talking about creating new graphics to support a specific post topic, that's slow work for me. So if I've got Canva open and I'm in a groove, it will feel best to me to prep images for as many blog posts as I can,

[00:06:23] compress them all, upload them all, file them all neatly, and do it all as a batch. That's also going to push image work down my calendar even farther for the future, since it's a non desired task and I don't wanna see it come up on my calendar again for a long, long time. We waste so much time inside our teacher businesses opening and closing the same documents, spreadsheets, and tabs, and looking for the same assets.

[00:06:52] But when we have an SOP in front of us, we can get curious about the most efficient way to accomplish the task that works with the way our energy and creativity want to flow. After all, batching isn't about blogging or creating products exactly the same way as another teacher seller batching is about finding what works for you so that you can get tasks done in your business consistently, efficiently, and at the highest possible level of quality.

[00:07:21] So batching isn't for everyone, and there are probably times that you've tried batching and it has not felt like a win. I am a big fan of batching personally, but I do think it's important to call out that it's not going to be a match for everyone, and that's okay. If everyone around you is having success with batching and you've tried it from multiple different angles and it just doesn't work for you, this is not a skill that you have to conquer to be successful.

[00:07:50] If you're in a season when you're working in extremely small pockets of time, or your energy is very unpredictable, then you might be better off working on one thing at a time, celebrating the baby step and picking up where you left off at the next work schedule opportunity. And if everyone around you is batching and you are not

[00:08:12] don't feel like you're feeling or doing it wrong. You might just be living in your season and honoring your own energetic capacity. But if you've tried batching in the past and it hasn't worked out, I hope today's episode just helps you take a moment to reflect if you had an SOP in place when you sat down to try to batch out that task. It's very hard to write a high quality blog post without an SOP checklist, and it's likely even harder to write two or three, or 10 or 12 of them without a streamlined, proven, tested system that works.

[00:08:49] Making the process move smoothly for one post is key before we can try to batch multiple posts at a time. So maybe batching can work for you, but maybe the last time you tried it, you just weren't sure the best way to give it a try. As always, do what works for your brain, but don't give up on the power of batching if it didn't work for you the first time you tried it.

[00:09:13] And in the spirit of Back To School, if you know it's time to get started with SOPs inside your business, but you aren't sure where to start,

[00:09:21] you'll love my step-by-step free hiring guide at cook family resources.com/hiring-guide.