Do you do your ironing and laundry all at once or daily basis?
Do you cook every meal fresh or batch cook your meals?
Do you complete the tasks require for a blog post one by one or you batch produce your work?
When we examine further, we may find our approach may differ with each aspect of our lives.
We may batch cook meals but prefer to clear our laundry on daily basis.
If we are an artist or a creative, we may produce work piece by piece instead of batching them up but we may batch up certain tasks like replying emails or scheduling our social media posts.
There are no right or wrong answers. In the end, it depends on the:
1. The nature of each individual task.
2. Our perception of its importance.
3. If we love doing the task or not.
Most important, you examine if your chosen method is suited to you, or becomes something that further contribute to the stress you are feeling in your life.
For example, some people would iron their working attire the day or night before. They do not prefer to just do ironing once a week or a fortnight. So each day, they would open their cupboard to a bunch of clean but wrinkly working clothes and decide which one they would wear, and then take out the clothes and quickly iron them.
This was what I used to do for quite a number of years in my career. Till one day, I realize that:
1. I hated looking at my wardrobe each day to be greeted by wrinkly clothes that don’t make me feel good.
2. It adds further stress to what I am already feeling.
3. Since I am not by nature a morning person, I ended up getting late to work because I had to iron my clothes.
After realizing the above, I decided I will allocate a time each week to batch iron my clothes. And I refused to hang up these clothes in my cupboard until they have been ironed. All washed clothings would be temporary placed in a designated clothing basket till they have been ironed.
I also managed to get more joy out of ironing by using that time to tune in to my favourite YouTubers. I consider buying a Smart TV (bought it while I was still working) as a good investment cause it had enabled me to run video playlist on TV. With that, my mind slowly associate ironing as pleasant task instead of something I hated.
Eventually, I also reduced my ironing time drastically by shopping for clothes that do not require any or just minimal ironing. But they are also clothes that I feel good wearing, can absorb sweat.
It is the same for you. All you need to do is to find more productive and enjoyable ways to get things done in a manner that is most suited to your preference. Some tasks may be better suited to be batched up and some better off being individually done.
For example, you may want to:
- schedule time to answer your emails or return calls/ messages instead of tackling one at a time (batching)
- do your filing of documents once a week or month depending on the volume but place these documents in a dedicated basket/place until you have time to deal with them (batching)
- group certain tasks that do not require a lot mental energy to do at the end of the day when you are winding down… eg laundry or tidying up the living area (batching)
- batch cook food for your pets in advance (like I did) (batching)
- do your laundry once a day or few days if you want to keep a minimalist wardrobe (do each time or semi-batching)
- just give quick rinses to your bathroom when you finish your shower so that you do not get overwhelm with a dirty bathroom (do each time)
