Annie:
Welcome to The Whole Assistant podcast. I'm your host, Annie Croner. I'm a former assistant who's passionate about our profession, and I'm also a certified coach who's invested in your success. You've come to the right place if you want to know what it looks like to stand in your power and achieve success as an assistant, creating overwhelm and burnout. Now onto today's episode. Hello. So today we are talking about my favorite energy management strategy. That that also reduces stress.
Annie:
And this strategy is also a way for you to show up more strategically, which is often the case. I have just found that productivity hacks time and time management strategies. Energy management strategy strategies are often all about really showing up more strategically for yourself. So today I'm going to give you my favorite strategy that I utilized a lot as an executive assistant and I still use today to really reduce stress, reduce mental fatigue, and actually get into a state of flow. So before I do that, though, I do want to share about an upcoming event. On Friday, June 14, I'm hosting another executive assistant mingle. And I am loving these mingles. I'm loving networking.
Annie:
I've heard from you guys that you want more free networking events. Just a time to connect with other executive assistants to grow and expand your network, to hang out with people who get it. So this event is going to be online, and it's going to be June 14, which is a Friday at noon Central time. So please show up. We're just going to have a lot of fun. We're just going to hang out. We're going to get to know one another better. We're going to share stories.
Annie:
We're going to do breakout rooms to where it'll be more intimate for like five to ten minutes, and then we're going to come back. And I generally like to give topics for the breakout room so that you guys aren't just hanging and staring at each other. And so this is just going to be a fun time of connection. And I felt like the summer months were a great time to start this. And if it gains momentum and if you guys want to continue to do this, then I will continue to host monthly. So we're going to start out. The first one for the summer is going to be Friday, June 14 at noon Central time. So please join us.
Annie:
You can go to wholeassistant.com mingle to register for the event, and then I will send you the link after you register. I'm just really looking forward to spending time with you all, so please join us. Okay, guys, now we're going to move on to the topic of today, which, as I mentioned before, is my favorite energy management strategy. That also reduces stress, that also helps you show up more strategically for your role. And that strategy is batching. So I'm going to go back to my roots here. When I first started out whole assistant, I really was big into productivity strategies, and it's still a pillar of my business. I still like to touch on time management and productivity strategies because these things will help us show up more strategically for ourselves and our lives, and they'll also show up help us show up more strategically for our executives as well.
Annie:
So for those of you who are unfamiliar with what batching actually is, batching is simply grouping similar tasks together. So there has been some science around this and about around changing between vastly different tasks and the impact that has on your brain. The idea of batching came from a desire to group similar tasks together to make switching from task to task more seamless and more streamlined for your brain. So studies have shown that up to 40% of our productive time throughout the day is actually spent switching between tasks and a vastly different task. Which is why I'm also a big fan of closing out of all the tabs on your computer, just working with with one or two windows open and not your email. So I like to work with my task management app open on my computer or website open on my computer, and then the actual thing I'm working on on the other screen as a way to make sure I'm staying on track with my priorities. And then also if something hits my brain, I can pop into my task management system and go ahead and add the task to the list. The reason I say not to, like, work all the time with your inbox open is because that is going to be a temptation for you.
Annie:
Our brains like the dopamine hit of checking the inbox and checking the thing off the list. So if, even if it's for like 20 minutes at a time, if you can close out of your inbox for 20 minutes at a time. I'm not saying that we want to ignore our inbox or not pay attention to what's going on in our inbox, but that's why I say to work with your inbox closed. If you are working, going heads down into a project and you want to focus, and you need that time and space to focus. Okay, I'm getting off track here. I'm gonna pull us back. So batching is simply grouping similar tasks together. As I mentioned before, studies have shown that it's a lot easier for the brain to transition from task to similar task than it is to switch from task to drastically different tasks.
Annie:
Batching can save you time. Because we're in the zone, we're generally working on a specific project, or we're working on something very specific. And so batching can keep us in that zone, keep us in a state of flow longer, because when we switch to a similar task, we remain in that flow, and it can also reduce mental fatigue, which I think we all know by now that I'm a big fan of. I'm a really big fan of us taking good care of ourselves. And often what we do is we'll pit taking good care of ourselves against being productive. But what I like to do is to find the harmony between taking care of ourselves and productivity. How can we get more done in less time and with less effort and energy, and as a result, also take care of our brain, also reduce the mental fatigue. So there again, it takes a lot of mental energy to switch between task and vastly different tasks.
Annie:
And so this can really drain us, and we can walk away from our work not feeling fulfilled, but feeling like a zombie and wondering what we actually accomplished throughout our day. I love this because this strategy will save you time. It will reduce mental fatigue, and it will also promote a state of focus and flow. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with flow, flow is a state of being completely immersed in a task or project with a lack of self consciousness. I don't know if any of you guys have ever watched children play. I know with my boys sometimes they'll be coloring their tia gave them these coloring books this last weekend that had, like, the invisible markers, but when you put it on the coloring page, like, it showed the color, and, man, were they in a state of flow. They were just enjoying themselves. They were not conscious of themselves, and they were so happy.
Annie:
And so when we're in that state of flow, flow promotes an overall state of satisfaction and an overall state of happiness. It's virtually impossible to achieve a state of flow if your brain is making drastic switches constantly. So as much as we can create that focus for ourselves, as much as we can create that state of flow, it will help us show up more strategically for our roles. It will help us really experience more fulfillment in our role and get more things done in less time. So what should I group together? You may be wondering. So I'm going to share with you guys practical things that you can group together so that you can find that state of flow so that you can really maximize your output, so that you can really streamline your time and minimize the energy you're putting towards your work, consider grouping the following items together. Obviously calendaring items, so check slack for calendaring items. Check your email, check your text.
Annie:
Like handling all of those calendar items while we're in our email inbox is a great thing to group together. So I really like to check my email first thing in the morning. Go ahead and schedule or calendar those things that come into my inbox first thing in the morning. The rest of the tasks land on my Trello board. And so that's one way that we can really batch is by grouping our calendaring items and email together. Generally we're working in Outlook or Google Suite. The tools are so cohesive. So if you're switching back and forth between calendaring and email and we're in our inbox and we're in our calendar, and those things sync up so well.
Annie:
Actually batching those things together can be a huge brain saver and then closing out of your inbox for a time, even if it's only 20 minutes, so that we can then tackle a high priority item. So another thing that I always really like to group together are bookkeeping items. So in my last role with my executive, I managed his books. I kept track of things in Quickbooks. I also paid bills and I would save invoices. And I got invoices through his physical mail. I got invoices through email. And then my executive would often text me invoices, especially when he was down on his boat and his boat guy.
Annie:
So he would text me a picture of the invoice. I would save all of those up and I would pay them all on Thursday afternoon. And then I would get into Quickbooks and I would accept charges for the week. So that was a great kind of batching. I would spend three or 4 hours going through his finances, updating all the financial spreadsheets. All of that happened generally on Thursday afternoon. Now, occasionally my executive would reach out to me and be like, this is a really high priority item. Please pay it immediately.
Annie:
And of course, of course I would pay that. But for the most part, that was a rarity. For the most part, I would save all of those financial things up and I would batch all of those together. Another thing that you may want to consider grouping together are your errands, if you're going to be running lots of errands for your executive. I was also a personal assistant, so I ran a fair amount of errands. I would save all of that up for one day, one afternoon, and I would just run all those errands all at once. Research items are another thing that you can save up. So if your executive wants you to look into two or three things, researching hotels, researching flights, all of that sort of thing, you can group those together, organizing projects.
Annie:
So I would be at their home from time to time organizing things. And generally that happened on Wednesday mornings. They'd be over there organizing things, helping his partner outline things for the week. And so that would all happen on Wednesday mornings. Travel related items depending on your executive's calendar and how much he switches or they switch their travel arrangements, you can often batch travel related things. So just be thinking about what you can group together instead of the instant dopamine hit. I think a lot of us, our body is giving us a feedback loop, and that feedback loop can actually serve to hinder our productive output whenever you really think about it. So whenever we are pinged by your email and taken out of what we're working on currently or whenever we complete a task, our brain will give us a little dopamine hit.
Annie:
And we can become so tied up in getting the next dopamine hit that what ends up happening is we end up playing whack a mole and we end up doing this thing over here and this thing over here. And then we aren't actually showing up strategically for our day and our product, our productive output will actually take a hit from that. So just pay attention to yourself. Are you chasing the dopamine hit? Is there a better way of framing your time? Is there a better way of approaching your day? And how can you really leverage batching to maximize your productive output and reduce stress and reduce the energy you're using throughout the day so that you have some energy left at the end of your day? This is what I have for you guys today. I hope you find it helpful. I know that batching may be elementary for a lot of us, but we often forget. Oftentimes we just get into the rigmarole of life, we get into the swing of things, and we forget about these strategies that really help us maximize our productive output, reduce stress, and show up for ourselves in a higher way. Okay, guys, that is what I have for you guys today.
Annie:
Be intentional. Be whole. That is all for now. I help assistants apply the concepts I share on this podcast. If you're ready to take your growth deeper and you're curious whether working with me in a coaching capacity is right for you, please email me at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary discovery call.
