EP 59: Batching Working Smarter, Not Harder

00:00:00 [Melissa]
Start with one thing you can batch.
00:00:01 [Melissa]
Like, one task that you know you’re gonna do over and over again and just kinda say, alright.
00:00:06 [Melissa]
I’m gonna do it for the next hour, but I’m gonna knock out a couple weeks worth of stuff maybe or something like that.

00:00:12 [Alison]
Hey, I’m Allison, family photographer, military spouse, and business mentor for photographers.

00:00:18 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle new work, and SEO expert for photographers.
00:00:23 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years in photography and have lived through nine business relocations.

00:00:29 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through all these challenges privately on Marco Polo, and now we’re bringing our polos public.
00:00:34 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you actionable steps to help you keep it moving.

00:00:41 [Melissa]
Hey, everyone.
00:00:42 [Melissa]
Welcome back to the show.
00:00:43 [Melissa]
So today, we’re diving into something that honestly has saved my sanity as a business owner, and that would be batching.
00:00:49 [Melissa]
Yes.
00:00:50 [Melissa]
You’re, like, really good at this.

00:00:52 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:00:52 [Melissa]
I I just I don’t feel like I’m getting anything accomplished when I’m jumping from one task to another.
00:00:57 [Melissa]
It just, it feels like I’m all over the place.
00:00:59 [Melissa]
I just feel like I’m making barely any anyway.

00:01:02 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:01:02 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:01:03 [Alison]
I feel really scatterbrained.

00:01:04 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:04 [Melissa]
And so I think, you know, for me, batching lets me like get rid of that scatter and feel like things are structured and I actually accomplish things on my list versus

00:01:14 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:01:14 [Alison]
You know?
00:01:15 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:01:15 [Alison]
I kinda think.
00:01:15 [Alison]
And just this is the thought is just coming to me as as an Enneagram seven, while I appreciate structure of my business sitting down and knowing what needs to be done, it, you know, mapped it out or planned it out ahead of time.

00:01:26 [Alison]
I also really appreciate the freedom to do what I want when I want.
00:01:29 [Alison]
So this I don’t batch quite as much as you do, but 100% agree.
00:01:34 [Alison]
Like, it’s it just it streamlines everything so much so well.

00:01:37 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:38 [Melissa]
And it’s so hard because I mean, if you think about it, like, I always joke around, you know, we’re we’re business owners that happen to do photography.
00:01:44 [Melissa]
And when you’re a business owner, you know, as a photographer, you’re an artist, but you’re also an accountant, a marketer, customer service rep.
00:01:51 [Melissa]
You might even be a student.
00:01:52 [Melissa]
Like, maybe you’re taking I mean, I’ve got a course that I paid for in just it was a little expensive and I literally have not logged into it.

00:01:59 [Melissa]
And it’s sticky notes for me to log into it.
00:02:02 [Melissa]
And like, yeah.
00:02:05 [Melissa]
But, and so I’ve got it that I’m like, no, I’m not going to forget this and I’m going to do this, but you’re balancing so many things.
00:02:11 [Melissa]
And so for me, like, when I sit down and batch it, I can I can get all of that creativity and energy, like Mhmm?
00:02:19 [Melissa]
And put it into that versus if I switch to something else, I’m like a ping pong ball and it, like, it just isn’t effective.

00:02:26 [Melissa]
Hey, fellow hello, Arlena here.
00:02:27 [Melissa]
Does SEO feel super overwhelming to you?
00:02:30 [Melissa]
I get it.
00:02:31 [Melissa]
But guess what?
00:02:32 [Melissa]
SEO doesn’t have to be complicated.

00:02:34 [Melissa]
I’ve spent fifteen years in photography and ten years in IT before that, cracking the SEO code so that you don’t have to.
00:02:41 [Melissa]
Whether you’re eager to learn or you just want somebody to take care of it for you, I’ve got your back.
00:02:46 [Melissa]
With my SEO coaching and done for you services, you’ll get noticed online, attract more of your ideal clients, and keep doing what you love most, photography.
00:02:55 [Melissa]
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00:02:58 [Melissa]
Visit pictureperfectrankings.com, and let’s make SEO simple and effective for you.

00:03:03 [Melissa]
Let’s get your calendar booked.
00:03:06 [Melissa]
So I like to think of batching as focusing one thing, and we landed on the word thing because it’s not really one task.
00:03:13 [Melissa]
It’s not really you know, it was hard.
00:03:15 [Melissa]
So I’m gonna say one thing for an extended time frame, so where you have, like, repetitive tasks.
00:03:19 [Melissa]
So for example, Alison and I batch our podcast episodes.

00:03:23 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:03:24 [Alison]
Thursday’s podcast, hashtag.

00:03:26 [Melissa]
Another Thursday.
00:03:27 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:27 [Melissa]
Oh, that’s the thing.
00:03:28 [Melissa]
We podcast every other Thursday Mhmm.
00:03:30 [Melissa]
And we try to record at least two episodes.

00:03:32 [Melissa]
Sometimes we get three.

00:03:33 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:03:34 [Alison]
That’s amazing.
00:03:35 [Alison]
Had ourselves a lot.

00:03:36 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:36 [Melissa]
So that’s batching for us right there is we’re just putting these repetitive tasks into one inframe.
00:03:41 [Melissa]
And then we try to kinda go, like, once a quarter where we will, you know, spend that time planning podcast topics.
00:03:47 [Melissa]
Like and then that’s the focus.
00:03:48 [Melissa]
All we’re thinking about at that point is podcast topics versus if we sat down every Thursday or every other Thursday and said, what are we gonna record today?

00:03:55 [Alison]
Oh my god.
00:03:56 [Alison]
We would waste so much time.

00:03:59 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:59 [Melissa]
It would not be good.
00:04:00 [Melissa]
And you you get out of that creative zone kind of thing.
00:04:02 [Melissa]
You know?
00:04:03 [Melissa]
I mean, today I was working on emails for the podcast.

00:04:05 [Melissa]
I was batching emails today for the podcast.
00:04:08 [Melissa]
And as I was batching emails, I started, like, having idea podcast episodes.
00:04:12 [Melissa]
So I just pulled that up, just started to drop.
00:04:14 [Melissa]
There’s, like, seven new podcast episode ideas of my thoughts today as I did this.
00:04:19 [Melissa]
So that’s the kind of stuff that I think about batching.

00:04:21 [Melissa]
I also think about the fact that I really don’t like to do my hair and make I mean, it’s not that I don’t like to.
00:04:27 [Melissa]
I just don’t

00:04:28 [Alison]
It’s production.
00:04:29 [Alison]
It just takes time.
00:04:31 [Alison]
It’s a repetitive task, just like grocery shopping that I don’t want to do.
00:04:35 [Alison]
Every day or week.
00:04:36 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:04:36 [Melissa]
So when I do blow dry my hair and curl it and put on some makeup and put on a nice shirt and I’m not in like my t shirt with hair back and a headband or whatever, those are the days that I am going to record my SEO tips and my blog post topic videos for Instagram.
00:04:52 [Melissa]
And y’all, I have no lie, brought five shirts up to my office, gotten everything set up because then that’s the other pain in the butt part.
00:04:58 [Melissa]
Like I gotta get my phone set up.
00:04:59 [Melissa]
I gotta get the, you know, my microphone.
00:05:02 [Melissa]
Every am I little now I have a little remote, so I can start and stop without having to edit my video later.

00:05:07 [Melissa]
That’s huge.
00:05:08 [Melissa]
Good news.
00:05:09 [Melissa]
And I will change my shirt three times, you know, so that I look a little bit to freak out my different video.
00:05:14 [Melissa]
Brilliant.
00:05:14 [Melissa]
And batch them all out.

00:05:16 [Melissa]
And, like, you know, eventually, I’ll have a whole library full.
00:05:18 [Melissa]
I’m working on it.
00:05:19 [Melissa]
But to me again, that’s it.
00:05:21 [Melissa]
I will you know, I try to batch emails, SEO snapshots, stuff like that.
00:05:24 [Melissa]
And for some of this, like, you can always go back and adjust it.

00:05:27 [Melissa]
Like, you know, with the emails that I just set up and scheduled, I can always pop back in and, like, tweak something or adjust something.
00:05:34 [Melissa]
But if I don’t batch it and I have to do it every week, they’re not gonna get done.
00:05:38 [Melissa]
Like, even, like, Instagram and stuff.
00:05:40 [Melissa]
You know, there was a time where I would batch out all my Instagram posts, and and then I didn’t have to worry about it.
00:05:45 [Melissa]
And then I And I’m not

00:05:46 [Alison]
talking about Instagram.
00:05:47 [Alison]
I’m actually having the opposite problem where I have such high expectations for what I wanna do when I batch my Instagram stuff that I haven’t done it for a month.
00:05:55 [Alison]
Because I just haven’t had enough time to sit down and think about it in one extended period like I want.
00:06:01 [Alison]
So it’s been pushed off and pushed off, and it’s only a task that’s supposed to reoccur every every two weeks.
00:06:06 [Alison]
But I haven’t done it for over a month because I have such high expectations.

00:06:11 [Alison]
Also, I quit using Planoly.
00:06:12 [Alison]
So

00:06:13 [Melissa]
Oh.
00:06:14 [Melissa]
You know, Allison and I were talking to you before blog posts, you know?
00:06:17 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:06:18 [Melissa]
Especially when you’ve got to rename images and pull images and stuff.
00:06:21 [Melissa]
Yuck.

00:06:21 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:06:22 [Melissa]
I hate doing that.
00:06:22 [Melissa]
So if I’m gonna step down, like, just knock it out.

00:06:25 [Alison]
I got the keyword research tab open.
00:06:27 [Alison]
I got my keyword tracker open.
00:06:28 [Alison]
I got my backend open.
00:06:30 [Alison]
I got my file names and my

00:06:31 [Melissa]
notes are applying.
00:06:32 [Melissa]
I’m in

00:06:33 [Alison]
the right folder.
00:06:34 [Alison]
Lord help me.
00:06:34 [Alison]
I found the folder that has all my renamed blog posts in it from whatever year it is.
00:06:39 [Alison]
Like,

00:06:40 [Melissa]
I don’t wanna I don’t wanna find that every week.
00:06:43 [Melissa]
Like No.
00:06:43 [Melissa]
Like, doing it all at once, to me, works better.
00:06:46 [Melissa]
And then even, like, I outsource my admin tasks, but Allison and I were on, like, financial ones of, like, your bookkeeping, your taxes, like, sitting down.
00:06:54 [Melissa]
I mean, and for personal life, I sit down once a week and I look at our every dollar.

00:06:58 [Melissa]
And I do it at least once a week because I don’t wanna get in there every day.
00:07:01 [Melissa]
But if I get in there once a month, I don’t

00:07:02 [Alison]
wanna count it quite so much.
00:07:04 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:07:05 [Alison]
You’ve just created my Instagram.

00:07:06 [Melissa]
I’m like, nope.
00:07:07 [Melissa]
So I go out once a week and then I hit everything and I and like you said, you got all these tabs up.
00:07:11 [Melissa]
I gotta go check out Amazon.
00:07:12 [Melissa]
I gotta go check PayPal.
00:07:13 [Melissa]
What did we pay for this?

00:07:14 [Melissa]
What bucket does it go in?
00:07:15 [Melissa]
All of that.
00:07:16 [Melissa]
Mhmm.
00:07:17 [Melissa]
And then I would say, I actually heard, Megan DePiro talking about this in her Facebook group.
00:07:20 [Melissa]
I mean, I heard it yet, I guess.

00:07:22 [Melissa]
But they were talking about if you have a studio, like, having days.
00:07:26 [Melissa]
Like, almost to me, it was, like, batching days.
00:07:28 [Melissa]
So they would have a marketing day.
00:07:29 [Melissa]
They would have two studio shooting days, and then they would have two meeting days where they do consults and reveals.
00:07:35 [Melissa]
And I feel like that’s just so more efficient with your time than going from a marketing meeting to a shoot to a reveal all in one day.

00:07:43 [Melissa]
Instead, you can get in the shooting mindset.
00:07:45 [Melissa]
You can get into the marketing mindset.
00:07:47 [Melissa]
You can get into the consults and reveals mindsets.
00:07:51 [Melissa]
So those are things that I batch.

00:07:52 [Alison]
What do you batch?
00:07:53 [Alison]
Well, my list is not nearly as long.
00:07:55 [Alison]
But for so I’ve got the two sides.
00:07:57 [Alison]
With photography, the thing that comes to mind the most that I spend the most amount of time batching is, lead nurturing my leads.
00:08:05 [Alison]
So I’ve talked before when a client initially inquiries, I’m Johnny on it.

00:08:08 [Alison]
That’s the one thing that I’ll do on the weekends or evenings if I feel like it.
00:08:11 [Alison]
But I always do within twenty four hours.
00:08:13 [Alison]
Right?
00:08:14 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:08:14 [Alison]
But when it comes to where are they at in the workflow, doing phone calls, they’re just those discovery calls, follow-up emails, answering their emails.

00:08:22 [Alison]
Well, I answer their emails.
00:08:23 [Alison]
And but the calls particularly, I only do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between the hours of twelve and two.
00:08:28 [Alison]
Now, obviously that changes.
00:08:30 [Alison]
If I’m out of town for you know, I was in Las Vegas on a Wednesday, a Friday, and a Monday.
00:08:35 [Alison]
Okay.

00:08:35 [Alison]
So I opened up the previous Tuesday and I opened up the next Tuesday for calls because I had the time on the calendar.
00:08:40 [Alison]
Like, it’s not, it’s not a hard, hard sell, you know, it’s it’s not so hard that I can’t adjust it because clearly I want people to book a call with me so that I can be their photographer and not lose them to somebody else’s right hand.
00:08:53 [Alison]
So that happens.
00:08:54 [Alison]
So but I am not double checking their lead status in Tave.
00:08:58 [Alison]
I’m not advancing them.

00:08:59 [Alison]
I’m not sending nurturing emails unless it’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
00:09:04 [Alison]
So that’s the biggest thing.
00:09:06 [Alison]
Graham, and I mentioned my Instagram posts and graphics.
00:09:10 [Alison]
I really like to do two or three posts a week, but two to three two to four weeks at a time.
00:09:16 [Alison]
But it’s so burdensome lately that I just haven’t done it at all.

00:09:19 [Alison]
I quit Planoly for a lot of reasons, and I haven’t picked anybody else up.
00:09:23 [Alison]
I was trying to use Canva, but honestly, Canva, like, having to once you schedule a post to be shared on Canva, you cannot edit it.
00:09:29 [Alison]
And I get it.
00:09:30 [Alison]
Like, if you make changes, you’re you’re changing everything.
00:09:33 [Alison]
So it’s really cumbersome.

00:09:34 [Alison]
So that project that’s being scheduled has to have its own product.
00:09:38 [Alison]
So I’ve I’ve got this fabulous sugar studios, like 50 images deep graphics, right, of all these Yeah.
00:09:44 [Alison]
Will you frozen it until that post goes live?
00:09:46 [Alison]
So that’s a week from now, two weeks from now, two days from now, you can’t touch it.
00:09:50 [Alison]
So I was just copying, resizing, deleting everything except for what I wanted to post.

00:09:54 [Alison]
Well, now my Canva is a cluster of all these projects completely organized.
00:10:00 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:10:01 [Alison]
And and it just it completely ruins the whole shroom line nature of having all of the graphic designs in one project.
00:10:09 [Alison]
Are you still struggling to get profitable?
00:10:11 [Alison]
Are you relaunching your business or trying to refine your profitability?

00:10:14 [Alison]
Allison here and I’ve been there.
00:10:16 [Alison]
As a military spouse for fifteen years, I’ve moved my photography business seven times, effectively launching a new business with each move.
00:10:22 [Alison]
I’ve never worked anywhere longer than three years.
00:10:24 [Alison]
I’ve had all inclusive hybrid and virtual IPS structures, and I know what it takes to adapt and thrive.
00:10:30 [Alison]
I went from barely supporting my hobby in the early years to generating consistent 6 figure sales, supporting my crazy family along the way.

00:10:37 [Alison]
If you’re ready to break through the roadblocks, attract a dream client, and finally see the profits you’ve longed for.
00:10:43 [Alison]
Let’s work together.
00:10:44 [Alison]
Visit alisonbell.co to learn more or DM me on the gram at keep it moving pod links in the show notes.
00:10:50 [Alison]
Let’s do this.

00:10:53 [Melissa]
I mean, my camera’s a hot mess too, so I have no room to speak.

00:10:57 [Alison]
And honestly, I think that par for the course, but relying on Canva to be my scheduler is kind of a problem at the moment.
00:11:04 [Alison]
And so one, I’m this is process verbal processing.
00:11:08 [Alison]
Honestly, I probably just need to pick up later or something else to make that a little bit less cumbersome so that I actually sit down and do it.
00:11:14 [Alison]
But as far as the scheduling of the graphics, the graphics that I actually design, I really do like doing Canva because I only do those like once a week, maybe every other week.
00:11:23 [Alison]
And then I don’t have to download it to my hard drive only to upload it again.

00:11:27 [Alison]
I can appreciate that.
00:11:28 [Alison]
But when it comes to posting like photos and images, I can do that straight out of I probably just need to get to Instagram and just do it out of Instagram.
00:11:36 [Alison]
But when it comes to client orders, so this is something I’ve been experimenting with this this, year so far this quarter is doing client orders only.
00:11:45 [Alison]
It’s a slow time of year, so it’s kind of, you know, I don’t really have any feedback on it just yet, but it gets really busy in the summer and fall with follow-up orders.
00:11:53 [Alison]
And so I feel like I’m constantly constantly in my lab having to do stuff and their their website is so slow, to be honest.

00:12:00 [Alison]
I’m streamlining this.
00:12:01 [Alison]
By having all of my ordering happen on one day, I feel like it gives my clients an extra deadline.
00:12:05 [Alison]
Like Mhmm.
00:12:06 [Alison]
I’m not just gonna order this willy nilly.
00:12:08 [Alison]
I’m gonna order this by Friday.

00:12:09 [Alison]
So

00:12:10 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:12:11 [Melissa]
Take the week.
00:12:11 [Melissa]
If you miss that Friday, then you’re gonna wait till the next Friday.

00:12:14 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:12:14 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:12:15 [Alison]
And so they streamlined because in order to place those orders, I have to be in Tave to see their questionnaires, what design options did they want, in Fundy to make sure their their stuff is approved and their, pages are exported and all that stuff.
00:12:26 [Alison]
It’s this whole shebang of desktop organization that has

00:12:30 [Melissa]
to go with Yep.
00:12:32 [Melissa]
Ordering.
00:12:32 [Melissa]
Right?
00:12:33 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:12:33 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:12:33 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:12:34 [Alison]
So that’s that’s one of them.
00:12:36 [Alison]
So that’s client ordering, email batching.
00:12:38 [Alison]
I don’t think this is batching or if this is just strong boundaries.
00:12:42 [Alison]
I only am in my about my email between the hours of ten and twelve most days.
00:12:47 [Alison]
Like that’s work, that’s work email.

00:12:48 [Alison]
And that’s just because like, I got other things to do at 12:00.
00:12:52 [Alison]
I’m on the phone with people that doesn’t mean I’m sending them the recaps.
00:12:55 [Alison]
I’m just I don’t feel the need to respond to you right away.

00:12:59 [Melissa]
Now if I happen to be complete opposite.
00:13:01 [Melissa]
If that thing is sitting and there’s an unread message, I’m like having a heart attack.

00:13:05 [Alison]
Oh, no.
00:13:06 [Alison]
If you were on my Instagram stories recently, like I got my inbox to zero for the first time in maybe a while.
00:13:12 [Alison]
Like, that that was kind of a big deal.
00:13:14 [Alison]
But I just I just don’t feel like okay.
00:13:17 [Alison]
Yesterday, I think it was I happened to have my email up still, and it was a quick question from a client that’s next week about wardrobe.

00:13:24 [Alison]
I responded to that thing at, like, 01:00 and 02:00.
00:13:27 [Alison]
No big deal.
00:13:28 [Alison]
But if there’s a whole bunch of stuff in there, things that are gonna take me time away from the tasks that I have.

00:13:32 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:13:33 [Melissa]
That’s a good one.

00:13:34 [Alison]
At hand.
00:13:34 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:13:34 [Alison]
I’m not touching it.
00:13:35 [Alison]
And if it’s bothering me, I just x out the whole whole window.
00:13:38 [Alison]
Like Yeah.

00:13:38 [Alison]
And I agree with that

00:13:39 [Melissa]
because I will say emails definitely will distract me from other things, and I need to have a better boundary system with it.

00:13:46 [Alison]
That’s all it is to me.
00:13:46 [Alison]
It’s not that I’m a be worried about it.
00:13:48 [Alison]
I just I got other things to do.

00:13:50 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:13:50 [Melissa]
Push down on the other things.

00:13:51 [Alison]
And I definitely don’t do any email after my boys are home from school.
00:13:54 [Alison]
I don’t touch it on the weekends.
00:13:55 [Alison]
Now sometimes if I know I’ve got a busy Monday, like a session coming up on Monday, and I want to get a head start on some stuff, or I know I have some stuff lingering from the previous week, I might I might do some emails on the weekend, but I schedule them to send on Monday.

00:14:10 [Melissa]
Because I definitely want you to for that.

00:14:12 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:14:12 [Alison]
I don’t want you to think I know that I’m in my email on because I don’t want you to expect me to a b.
00:14:17 [Alison]
Right?
00:14:18 [Alison]
It’s just it’s just managing expectation.
00:14:20 [Alison]
So that’s a fun little trick.

00:14:21 [Alison]
And then of course, Monday, I do emails, my global emails, my photography emails, podcast emails, Thursdays will be podcast, like we mentioned.
00:14:28 [Alison]
And then for the mentoring side of everything, I’ve got Monday Wednesday for those photography leads, but Tuesday, Thursday is my mentoring meetings.
00:14:37 [Alison]
It’s my emails, follow ups, and then, of course, the client calls and our podcasting.
00:14:42 [Alison]
So, yeah, it sound I guess that was a lot.
00:14:45 [Alison]
It felt like a verbal fire.

00:14:46 [Alison]
Maybe it’s more than I realized.
00:14:48 [Alison]
I mean, there’s always room for more.
00:14:49 [Alison]
I think I I am doing my podcast and mentoring emails week to week.
00:14:55 [Alison]
Okay.
00:14:56 [Alison]
And I there’s room for growth there to do them week week with our podcast months in advance, what we’re doing.

00:15:01 [Alison]
I could do two or three weeks of those at a time.
00:15:03 [Alison]
That might

00:15:03 [Melissa]
be Yeah.
00:15:03 [Melissa]
Well, five weeks.
00:15:04 [Melissa]
I mean, I’ve got emails going out until like mid May right now for podcast stuff with the May.
00:15:08 [Melissa]
And so I don’t have to worry about it.
00:15:10 [Melissa]
Now what I do have to remember though is the April to go pull the next month’s of episodes at two Well, that’s fair.

00:15:17 [Melissa]
Task.

00:15:17 [Alison]
That’s just a normal task for April.

00:15:19 [Melissa]
There you go.
00:15:19 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:20 [Melissa]
I’ll put that in my ClickUp and stuff.
00:15:21 [Melissa]
But, yeah, just remembering to, like, okay.
00:15:23 [Melissa]
And I know, like so I am always very confident when I’m like, yes.

00:15:27 [Melissa]
I knocked out all of this stuff.
00:15:28 [Melissa]
I’m clear for, like, this amount of time.
00:15:30 [Melissa]
But then I then that time clicks back up on me and then I’m like, oh, shoot.
00:15:33 [Melissa]
I’m out of it.
00:15:34 [Melissa]
I’ve got to do

00:15:34 [Alison]
That’s exactly how I feel about the Instagram stuff, like free and clear for three weeks.

00:15:39 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:15:39 [Alison]
Or or even like the scheduling of our podcast.
00:15:41 [Alison]
So we mentioned we podcast on Thursdays, but on Tuesday, Thursdays are the only days that I upload them, complete the show notes, links, schedule them.
00:15:49 [Alison]
And I do them at least three weeks at a time.
00:15:51 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:15:52 [Alison]
Because same thing.

00:15:52 [Alison]
You’ve got your host up.
00:15:54 [Alison]
You’ve got your Trello up.
00:15:55 [Alison]
You’ve got your all the emails with the editor.
00:15:57 [Alison]
Everything’s up at the same time.
00:15:59 [Alison]
And which I don’t know if you have noticed, Chrome.

00:16:01 [Alison]
I feel like they’re a little late on this, but Chrome has a new tabs grouping.
00:16:06 [Alison]
Oh, shit.
00:16:07 [Alison]
It’s fantastic.
00:16:08 [Alison]
I just made a podcasting one.
00:16:09 [Alison]
I color coded it with my the same purple as my podcasting do not disturb on my phone.

00:16:16 [Melissa]
And

00:16:16 [Alison]
so all my podcasting stuff is purple because PMP.
00:16:19 [Alison]
And then I can, you can go and click podcasting and all the tabs will open up.

00:16:23 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.
00:16:23 [Melissa]
I haven’t messed with that.
00:16:24 [Melissa]
I do need to play around with that.
00:16:26 [Melissa]
And I think too, like when you’ve got all those tabs and stuff open, then also setting those boundaries, like where you were like, well, I’m just going to close out of my email.
00:16:33 [Melissa]
Like that’s something that when we podcast, I close out of my email, and I, like, put it away.

00:16:37 [Melissa]
So that way I don’t get distracted up and stuff.
00:16:39 [Melissa]
And that’s about the only to, like, not be in there.
00:16:42 [Melissa]
But, like, you know, to me, when I’m batching and stuff too, I you know, yes.
00:16:46 [Melissa]
I’m focused on that task, and we’re not gonna do anything else.
00:16:50 [Melissa]
So that’s that’s my love of batching and everything to batch.

00:16:53 [Melissa]
I would just say, like, for you guys, start with one thing you can batch.
00:16:56 [Melissa]
Like, one task that you know you’re gonna do over and over again and just kind of say, all right, I’m gonna do it for the next hour, but I’m gonna knock out a couple weeks worth of stuff maybe or something like that.

00:17:06 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:17:06 [Alison]
And you can pair this with our marketing Monday episode when you went live.
00:17:10 [Alison]
You could take a whole month, your four marketing tasks.
00:17:12 [Alison]
And like every Monday I’m writing however many emails you’re gonna send them up.
00:17:16 [Alison]
The next Monday, you’re gonna do however many social media posts you’re gonna do for a whole month.

00:17:20 [Alison]
Then the next Monday you can write a blog post, all the blog posts for a month.
00:17:23 [Alison]
And then you have that cycle and maybe, maybe the fourth Monday is a free day.
00:17:28 [Alison]
Like, it’s a pat on the back.
00:17:29 [Alison]
It’s a massage day.
00:17:29 [Alison]
But then you could, like, just have I might, I might do this myself.

00:17:33 [Alison]
I might take this on this little this little cycle.
00:17:35 [Alison]
So simplicity start with one thing and, you know, if you’re still writing the same email three times a week, there’s your there’s your answer.
00:17:42 [Alison]
But winner winner.
00:17:42 [Alison]
Well, awesome.
00:17:43 [Alison]
Well, thanks guys for listening, and until next.

00:17:45 [Alison]
Bye bye.
00:17:46 [Alison]
Bye bye.

00:17:48 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:17:49 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:17:52 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:17:53 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:17:55 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, no spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:18:00 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:18:03 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Allison on Instagram at Allison Bell or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Ranking.
00:18:12 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.