The Secret Ingredient in Batch Processing (Part 2)
In our last post on Batch Processing we wrote about the incredible value that can comes from knowing the “priority stack” for your business and making sure that those weekly business functions that you deem as most important, are completed without fail, every week.
So what is the other secret to batch processing? As we mentioned in our last post in this series, hopefully one day your business will grow to the point where you have to hire people to work in order to farm out some of your business’ functions. Until you reach that point you will have to decide which functions you will take on, and which you will leave alone until you can retain some help.
Once again there should be two lists. A first list of those functions that you must complete each week without fail, and a second list of all the tasks you hope to hammer out in an ideal week. The second secret ingredient in batch processing is to make sure to leave some business function off of both of these lists.
Each of us is different, and some entrepreneurs seem to be “superhuman” in there ability to accomplish an unnatural number of tasks each and every week. The point is that you know your own optimal stress load. To little stress and human beings tend to get lax, on the other hand, if you stack too much responsibility on yourself you may feel swamped if you are unable to complete your tasks.
Several weeks in a row of feeling swamped can have an extremely discouraging effect on a small business owner. This is why we recommend a small list, faithfully completed every week. Too much of load and you run the risk of either stressing yourself to the max or of spreading yourself so thin that you cannot maintain the standards of quality that you have set for your organization. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone.”
