32: Battling the Batching Boredoms

Kimberly Beer  0:00  

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Jaz  0:19  

Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. saddle up for a gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you’ll learn how to tame your wild business beast with tips, techniques, and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts, Kim Beer and Cara Taylor Swift.

 

Kimberly Beer  0:40  

Hey there business animals. It’s Kim with Be More Business and Cara with Fast Horse Photography. Welcome to The Business Animal podcast today we have a really interesting episode for you. Well, actually, all our episodes are interesting. Who am I kidding, right? by us, we are a little bit biased.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  1:00  

But hey, you’re always entertained by ourselves.

 

Kimberly Beer  1:02  

We are, we do have proof that other people found us entertaining because we are a finalist in that Spark Award thing, which we’ll keep everybody through and how we do that. So we do have outside support that we that we are something else. We’re not sure what

 

Cara Taylor Swift  1:21  

else? Yeah, exactly. We’re not sure what yet.

 

Kimberly Beer  1:23  

But today’s episode is about batching, which I have to tell you, I get super excited about it. And I don’t know if that’s like my inner geek or what that gets super excited about batching I think it’s because it saves me time. And anything that saves me time in my life makes me happy. And I wish I could get more batching done. Actually, I’m gonna rephrase that that’s bad NLP, it’s not that I wished it was I need to I need to batch my batching I need to I need to batch batch setting up my batching like all episodes, we need to start with explaining what the Holy heck batching is for those people that that are going okay. batching what is what she talking about? You had a really cute analogy to help people understand what batching is. Can you go over that real quick?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  2:12  

Yeah, of course. So I always think about batching. And I’m like I batch everywhere else in my life. And sometimes I forget to batch in my business. So I’m going to be the one here to say that I batch sometimes. And when I batching. I’m so happy that I’m doing it. And I’m so proud and relieved afterwards. And I can just kind of release it into the world and be done with it. But then there are times when I am supposed to be batching. And I should be batching. But I just forget to set the time aside. So this is a great reminder for me to go back to the basics of batching. And like kind of reset my mind because I use batching. Everywhere else, I go to the barn to feed the horses. And guess what I’m batching because what I do is I think about my horses and I have to gather all of the ingredients, right? I have to go and get the feed and the hay and some of my horses get supplements, and some of them get medicine, different types of medicines. And then I have to gather their individual buckets, right, and I have to sort the ingredients into the individual buckets. And then I have to make sure that the horses are where they’re supposed to be. And then I load all the buckets up into my arms or into a wheelbarrow or my truck or you know, maybe you have at one of those fancy RTV things that people drive around their barns. I don’t have one of those. I’m not that fancy. But I load all the buckets up. And then I drop each bucket in front of their horse like it’s supposed to be with their set ingredients. I do that all at the same time. Right? I’m sure a lot of people out there are like, yeah, yeah, that’s pretty. That’s what we all do. We all feed the horses in that same process. But imagine if instead of batching, I went to the barn and I prepared one horses bucket and walked it out to the pasture and dropped it. And then I walked all the way back to the barn and I prepared another bucket with its unique ingredients and walked it out to the pasture and dropped it. And I did that over and over again for each of our seven horses. like think about the time that is lost there and wasted there. So that’s a great to me a great example of batching and everyday life. So why aren’t we doing this more in our business?

 

Kimberly Beer  4:06  

Well, in that example, you would have some very angry horses, horses numbers 4,5,6 and seven would revolt.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  4:16  

Well, the Shetland pony would run over and steal the first horses feed, it would be a hot mess. I mean, it would never be realistic not to batch in horse feeding. But imagine and

 

Kimberly Beer  4:25  

we do need to do that more other things that we batch, Cara had another good example, which was cookies, you batch a whole bunch of cookies together because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to make one cookie right and then you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor over a period of time. So you do all of the work, and then you get the reward for a period of time. So that’s batching as well. And another example in our lives and in our businesses, something I think we all tend to batch except for those rare unicorn individuals who do it on a regular basis and that’s our accounting but we tend to batch that Like on April 1 or so, when we have to get our, or if your corporate March 1 so that you get your tax stuff done. Because that’s when you sit down with that huge box of receipts and you go through everything and you organize it all that’s kind of batching after the fact, then the goal would be not to have that midnight romance with your counting box. I don’t know how many people still do that. We have so many electronic receipts now my mother would lock herself in her room for like four days straight and do the farm taxes. And I remember you just never talked to her you like show up for yourself. Yeah, good to do the time you shoved food under the door for her and and you tried not to not to interact because it was not going to be a pleasant experience. batching is important for a whole lot of reasons. The biggest one is that it does save you time. And I think that’s that’s huge. It also keeps you more consistent, more focused. And Cara, you had an interesting point when we were doing prep for this. It’s just easier for your brain. Talk to me about that. Yeah,

 

Cara Taylor Swift  6:07  

well when you and I sit down, and we have times where we do one episode for the podcast for The Business Animal podcast at a time. And we’ll record one episode when we’re done for the day. And then we have other days where we have to batch some episodes because we’re going to be traveling and so we’ll sit down and say, Okay, today we’re going to do four episodes. And my brain works better when it gets to stay in one place. So we can jump from topic to topic, but we’re doing the same thing. So I guess we’re using the same type of brain energy to make that happen. Whereas when we recorded episode, and then I have to jump over and write a blog post right after and then I have to get my social media content put together, my brain is having to jump from one thing to another. And I find that super stressful for my brain. So batching if anything, it can use your brain, I think and just make it a little easier for you.

 

Kimberly Beer  6:55  

It is less stress. And thank you to our podcast producer and her wedding for getting us off of our butts and having us batch four episodes very quickly, which I think both of us going into that we’re like we can’t patch four episodes at once. But we sure did within a very short period of time and did a good job.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  7:15  

That’s right. So for those that don’t know, Jazz edits are all of our episodes for us. And she is getting married this week. So congratulations, Jazz, she really did put us in a spot where we had to do some serious batching. But it was so good for us, we had a great time doing it.

 

Kimberly Beer  7:32  

And may her wedding be as joyful and fruitful as our batched episodes.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  7:38  

Oh, God, I hope it’s way better than that.

 

Kimberly Beer  7:44  

Oh goodness. Anyway, so. So our big three for this episode when it comes to batching that we’re going to talk about and kind of get you guys stepped in the right direction with is number one, you need to get everything else out of the way. There’s a lot of times that there’s prep and stuff that goes involved in what you’re doing with when you’re going to be doing the batching. So for example, in Kara’s horse feeding scenario, the horses get supplements. So you know, you’ve had to talk to the vet, you’ve had to order those supplements from maybe far far away and plan for that you have to determine how much supplement research the type of fee they Yeah, and does anything, disagree with that horse and on and on and on. So you’ve got to get everything else out of the way. And there’s it’s a lot deeper than that, we’re going to dive into that a little further. This second of our big three is gathering your ingredients. So step one is get it out of the way. Step two is get the things together that you need to get together to be able to execute what it is, whatever it is that you’re batching and then the final of the Big Three is show up and do it. Which sounds really simple. But sometimes is the more complicated of these three steps towards batching. So let’s get started with getting everything else out of the way.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  9:03  

I was gonna suggest real quick before we jump into getting everything else out of the way could you just kind of give a rundown of like the types of things that people can batch in their business like some great examples,

 

Kimberly Beer  9:14  

anything that’s a repetitive task, your email marketing, that can be batched, your blogs can be batched, your social media can be batched. your social media can actually be batched. In sections like you can batch the brainstorming is part of it, you can batch the calendar part, you can batch the creating of the posts, you can batch graphics separate from text, and then you could also batch the scheduling of it. So there’s all kinds of batching when it comes to content and marketing but anything that you do over and over and over again. I’ll tell you another thing that I batch and that is my tasks. Like I take a look at all of the things I’ve got to do for the I have a little bit of time set aside that I try to do on Sunday nights that I sit down and batch up all of the stuff that I’ve got to do for the week and organize it, and then make better use of my time. And I guess that’s how just realize this, just that’s how batching saves you time. Because you’re doing something, you know that that’s over and over again, repetitive all at one time. So you don’t have to dig all of that stuff out. Again, editing photos, is a battable sending them off to the printer. I mean, pretty much any task that you do on a regular basis can definitely be batched. I think we’re batching really shines though has to do and probably what we’re going to be talking mostly about for the rest of this episode is content in creation of content and scheduling of content in in coming up with content plans and all of that. I think that that’s where batching really really excels your marketing in your business. Don’t you think you’re anywhere else? Did I miss that? Maybe you could batch stuff in your business? 

 

Cara Taylor Swift  11:06  

No I mean, for me, I think about batching. In terms of my social media, I think blog posts, I think Pinterest, I think website updates and edits, I think of editing client photos, I even batch when I have to order artwork. And so if I have multiple clients that are waiting on artwork, if I can order all of it at the same time, first of all, my brain is in that space. But also a lot of times there’s shipping discounts and that sort of thing that you can think about. So yeah, there’s so many different ways. Let’s move forward with number one

 

Kimberly Beer  11:33  

well, and one more thing that I can tell you is why it’s important to batch which just came to me You make fewer mistakes, because you are in that mindset, especially on really tedious detail oriented stuff like ordering images, you tend to not make mistakes and doing that. Alright, so get everything else out of the way. That’s the probably the biggest one. And I think that this is where people who have tried batching and failed, I think it’s this step that oftentimes hangs people up, because so many of us do an activity called structured procrastination. And we’ve mentioned this before on the show, and I can’t remember what episode it was in a way of life for some of us. Yeah, it is. I am a structured procrastinator in and of myself. Yes. So I oftentimes will go down rabbit holes, and it’s just not sometimes end up in wonder late. And don’t get back to what I need to be doing. So I’ve got to get everything else out of the way, if there’s something that I want to do differently, or a piece of software that I want to try or something like that. I need to get it out of the way. And another one that I see trip people up a lot. And I’m getting out of order on our sheet here, but is have you done this before. So people will be like, okay, I want to batch my social media content, okay, that’s great. And they decide, okay, I’m going to batch my social media content, and I want to have as a piece of scheduling software, well, if I batch it, and then I put it in the scheduling software, that’s great. So I’m gonna do that and they get their content written. And then they get over to the scheduling software, and they have no clue how to use it, or how long it’s gonna take. So then they get flustered with the batch and they quit. So the thing here is, let’s get all of those things, check marked off the list and start seeing around the corners to what it is that we need to do. And is there something you need to learn or something else that you need to get out of the way. And I know there’s a bunch more on this list. So I’m going to leave those to you, Cara. Since those are all good topics, Cara has a list for you.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  13:42  

Like per usual, right. So like Kim mentioned, you have to get everything out of the way you have to and you have to understand kind of like what you’re planning to do. So if you don’t know how to use that software, that’s part of getting stuff out of the way, sit down, figure out what you’re going to use, so that when you have everything created, you’re ready to roll with it. But you’ve got it. This is where you’re doing your research, it’s where you’re kind of setting up the scene for your batching you’re going to schedule it, you have to schedule the time. So Kim gave a great example. When we were talking about this earlier, you know knowing how long it takes you to write a blog post for example, then you say okay, I want to do six blog posts during this batching session then I know I’m going to need X number of hours per blog post potentially and then you want to plan for no distractions so if you’re like me and you have a work from home environment, that means scheduling it for a time when everyone’s out of the house putting a Do Not Disturb sign on the door planning with my husband that he needs to keep you know my son upstairs so that I can be in the studio alone kicking the dogs out of the wrestling under my desk I need to plan for no distractions and I love to set up my work environment. This is a big one for me like in a way that is super cozy and comfortable. So I might make sure that my favorite drink and my spark is sitting here I’ll have a favorite healthy snack you know handy because I love to like munch on grapes while I’m working and just kind of have fun. Constant food intake. I don’t know if you’re that way but I need like constant food intake. So having the drink setup I like my spot to feel cozy if I’m not warm, I want a jacket, you know, that sort of thing I want to be super cozy then the next piece is really being realistic about what you can get done. So it comes back to that like for me, it might take me hours to write a blog post where somebody else that’s listening or even you can might say, well, I can knock a blog post out in 30 minutes I’m you know, gangbusters when it comes to writing and being creative, that side of things, you know, just being really realistic about what you can accomplish in that time period. Is there anything else to add to that, that I’ve left out him?

 

Kimberly Beer  15:36  

No other than well, couple of comments. First of all, I think more people would be interested in batching. If they knew there were snacks involved, like snacking is part of the process.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  15:46  

You can set your batching up any way that you want. If you need snacks to batch like I do, then bring in the snacks.

 

Kimberly Beer  15:56  

practice practice, you’re batching by making a batch of cookies to get prepared for it. So snacks are always an incentive right to be able to show up. And I do like all of this list. I think the only other thing I have to add to this is really work through in your own mind, even on a piece of paper, maybe if you’re if you’re not good at remembering those things, really work through what steps that you need to do in order to do whatever it is that you’re trying to batch. When it comes to like the example of blog posts, blog posts sometimes need to be divided up into separate batches, like you need to come up with the topics which is getting into our ingredients, which is coming up next. But you need to come up with the topics and then you probably need to do some research on those topics. And then you need to actually sit down and do the writing piece of things. And if you try to do that all in one batching session, it’s not as efficient as if you do all of the brainstorming and figure out your topics. And then you sit down and you go Okay, I’m gonna write these three blog posts first, and then you go do the research for those three blog posts. Then you sit down and actually write the blog posts, it is more time efficient to break it up into those three batches than trying to do all of it in one batch. So understanding the steps that you need to do is really important in understanding how you want to create your batching situation. 

 

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Cara Taylor Swift  18:27  

Well, I don’t know much about how the brain works. But I will tell you that when I sit down and I’m brainstorming or gathering information, my brain works differently than when I actually have to start writing. So it makes sense that like if it comes back to that switching your brain between types of tasks, that that would be more exhausting for you and less efficient. So getting all your information together gathering everything all at one time, versus trying to knock out one blog post at a time in your batching you know from full completion makes total sense to me.

 

Kimberly Beer  18:58  

It definitely does like in social media coming up with your content calendar for the year and then determining how many posts you’re going to do and then then sitting down and gathering all of the images for the post. So understanding your steps is really important because it’s going to be key to the next thing which is gathering your ingredients. So this is the part of the process where you put all of the pieces together that you’re going to need when you actually sit down and do it. So in our horse feeding example, this is where you order the supplements and you put them in your barn and you get the little scoops together and you know how much each horse is going to have and maybe have a cheat sheet on the barn door and you have your different colored buckets or you know what horses getting what bucket or you engrave their names on it or however that works in your world. You know, this is the time that you need to gather your ingredients and it kind of starts back in that getting everything else out of the way. This is your brainstorming time. Right?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  20:02  

Yeah. So with the brainstorming, I feel like there’s kind of two different parts to that. So the first part is like kind of the brain dumping part right? Where you’re maybe you’re free writing, like we’ve talked about in the getting creative episodes. This is where you’re really just trying to think about what is it important for me to share what is important for me to talk about? What do I want to talk about, you know, with my audience and my blog posts on my Pinterest page? What do I want to talk about? Are there things out there that I want to teach? Or that I can teach? To my audience? What does my audience always seem to want to know? Like, what are they asking me about? What am I clients asked me about all the time? What are my Frequently Asked Questions? And then Are there any special events or promotions coming up in my business that I want to recognize or share about in the upcoming future, you know, that I need to think about when I’m batching? And then the last piece of that I feel like is determining like, ultimately, what your call to actions? Like? What kind of call to actions do you need to have? Are you trying to drive people to your website? Are you trying to get them to book with you? Are you trying to get them to comment on like your social media posts? Are you trying to get them to share something? So thinking about that part of it, I think, is one segment. But then the next segment of that is is kind of like the gathering section, where you’re looking? What kind of visuals do you need? So you’re gathering all of those visual elements like images? Do you need to go out and take pictures for the for this particular batch that that you’re doing? Do you need to create video? Do you need to grab infographics for it? Do you need to have specific backlinks or links to different resources available for your content? Do you have to start pulling together your hashtags, we just recorded a whole episode on hashtags that we’re going to be talking about. And you know, so thinking about the hashtags that you need to use for that. And then finally, you need to pull all of that together. And that’s when you’re going to start formatting the content for all of those different locations that you may be putting it. So if it’s going on social media, you know, Instagram is formatted differently than Facebook versus Twitter, right. So it might be the same types of content, but you’ve got to think about your formatting. So I feel like with Gather the ingredients, there are kind of two sections, there’s the brainstorming time, and then there’s the the gather, where you’ve got to gather all the elements together for that,

 

Kimberly Beer  22:14  

yeah, and get them all into one place. And realistically, there’s a couple of different tools out there that really help you with both of these processes for brainstorming. To me, the analog version is a for a girl who loves gadgets, I still prefer the analog version of carrying a notebook around and keeping my brainstorming ideas in there. But then finding dedicated time that I can do that because I feel like I think better about those things when I’m not sitting in my office and distracted by a million things. So I may go sit with the goats, I have to fend them off from eating my notebook. But I may go sit with the goats and brainstorm ideas or my tractor time is a really good time to brainstorm ideas, or driving time to come up with those things. But then the second piece of that is the gathering of the elements in and there’s some really cool tools that will help you with that Google Drive is amazing, I have a new social media person get to step in and help me and I’ve been organizing our Google Drive, so that I can share stuff with her that needs to be posted, or myself and for my clients. And it’s just really nice, it’s a very efficient way to keep things in order, you can make spreadsheets in there that have all the information that you need, you can make a folder and put all of your images, you can organize it by the month, you can organize it by the week, however, you want to think about your batches, and so on and so forth. And a lot of times Google Drive and another tool that I love to use, which is Dropbox, they often have hooks into like the social media scheduling programs I personally use later to schedule social media. And later we’ll pull images from both Google Drive and from Dropbox into the calendar so that you’re able to schedule directly from there. So use tools that are going to help you and this goes back to the getting everything else out of the way, kind of figure out what those tools are and learn how to use them. But I highly recommend both of those tools, Google Drive and Dropbox to help you be able to do these things together everything you need in a place that’s not stuck on a specific computer, but is there in the cloud so you can access it from any of your devices. So if you don’t do well, when you actually show up to do your batch, if you don’t concentrate well in your own office, which is which happens. You can take it to a coffee shop and sit down and all of your stuff is right there because it’s up on the cloud and it’s easily assessable. So yeah, use tools that are going to help you be able to create a better batching situation when you’re gathering those ingredients. Whatever happens to work for you.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  25:01  

And I would just add, you don’t have to have like fancy expensive software either. I mean, Google Drive, totally not costly. It’s like a free service. And I also like to use if the platform that I’m using has an a scheduling system, like I use Facebook and Instagram business suite all the time, and it’s included, it works just fine. It’s not a system that you have to pay for. It’s included in the software. And I use my notes section on my phone all the time, too, because I’ll be driving an idea pop in my head. And that’s where I dump it. And I have a running list in my phone, which was why when I lost my phone on 6000 acres in Wyoming, I was pretty upset because I had a lot of notes in there. Luckily, they were in the cloud, though, like you mentioned. So they all came back to me when I had to buy a new phone in Douglas shout out to the at&t store and Douglas because I was able to buy one of your four phones. So thank you.

 

Kimberly Beer  25:51  

I am still convinced that I could have found that phone if you would have just if everybody would have just chilled and let me walk. I am so proud of us because our fearless leader on that particular day. His name is Carien which we’ve interviewed on the show. And she was like, we’re all like, how do we find out where we were parked when Cara was taking pictures with her phone? And she’s like, y’all have GPS on your camera? Look at the GPS. 

 

Cara Taylor Swift  26:17  

Was that her idea? I thought it was your ID 

 

Kimberly Beer  26:19  

No it wasn’t my idea. I’m the person who pushed the play button and got the GPS coordinates. I was pretty proud of myself that I could figure out how to get the GPS coordinates of a specific photo that I took actually on the back of the camera and then I think it was Tracy or Terri that had some app on their phone. Like walk to exact coordinates. The amount of technology that is at the disposal of professional photographers is astounding and the fact that we all figured out how to use it is probably even more astounding.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  26:52  

I mean, we figured out how to use it but we still never found my cell phone so I would just like to just say it’s okay, I’ve let it go. it’s been released you wanted to do with the Why do you want it to do I was ready for new cameras when it came down to new cell phone camera. Anyway, we’ve gotten off track and

 

Kimberly Beer  27:15  

now some Mustangs in Wyoming are making phone calls on Cara’s phone. Okay, so yes, we did get off track a little bit but hopefully everybody enjoyed that little story about Cara losing her phone she also broke her camera on that same trip it was just not a good Cara trip.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  27:32  

Very expensive trip. Alright, got a shard of glass in my eye.

 

Kimberly Beer  27:36  

Oh, yes. Got a shard of glass in her eyes.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  27:41  

When I when I stupidly blew my busted lens blew on it. So anyway, there’s a lot of lessons here guys

 

Kimberly Beer  27:48  

a lot a lot of lessons. So anyway, okay, so let’s move back to batching. me anyway. Well, so first of all, before we go back to batching, I know, I have to say we’ve made batching a pretty exciting subject so that we had to get off on some kind of an adventure story is not surprising, because batching in and of itself, if y’all have listened  this long, kudos to you.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  28:12  

It’s a boring topic.

 

Kimberly Beer  28:14  

It’s a boring topic. But that’s what it’s supposed to be right? It’s supposed to make your life more boring. Because it’s a I think I’ve been let’s be honest,

 

Cara Taylor Swift  28:26  

let’s just put everybody out of their misery. Let’s just put everybody out of their misery. Move on to number three, knock out this batching episode. So that we can move on to more exciting topics for our audience. Okay, let’s just do it.

 

Kimberly Beer  28:41  

Sounds good.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  28:44  

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Kimberly Beer  29:30  

Okay, so the last one is, is that you got to show up and actually do the batch, execute whatever it is that you’re doing. So those things have stages, and hopefully you’ve determined those stages. So if you’re writing a blog or doing social media posts, maybe you draft it and then you have to prove it. So definitely proofreading should be more part of everyone’s batching process. My own included I had to do three Facebook ads yesterday because I kept making typos and so I had to kept having a camp. To let go, I wouldn’t see it until I published it. cura has a really good, a good suggestion here, too, if you have written content to read it out loud. And I think that’s an amazing idea. When I do my blogs, I actually read them into our podcast recording software or a podcast recording software does not necessarily Riverside. And then I play them in my truck when I’m driving. So I know if I can stand to listen to it. And I also hear the mistakes and the places that I screw stuff up. So that’s another way you can prove

 

Cara Taylor Swift  30:34  

I like to read it out loud Kim because I like to write a lot of times like I sound, which is good, because I’m only writing for my business. And I’m only representing me. So I like to write like I talk basically. So sometimes my finished product isn’t always proper English, if that makes sense. But it’s written phonetically in the way that I want people to hear my voice, because that’s how I talk. So I don’t know, I just that’s my theory behind reading it out loud.

 

Kimberly Beer  31:00  

That’s a good theory, I had a huge argument with a proofreader that I hired because she made all of my blog posts into proper English. Now, mind you, I am an English major in creative writing English major, but I am an English major, I should know proper grammar, and I actually do, but I like to be a little bit I like to break the rules. I’m a rebel.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  31:28  

You’re so edgy

 

Kimberly Beer  31:32  

I’m edgy, when you know better. There’s sometimes I don’t use the Oxford comma, 

 

Cara Taylor Swift  31:37  

I don’t even know what that is so we’re good. 

 

Kimberly Beer  31:38  

Actually I’m a big Oxford comma, fan, I really, truly use the Oxford comma every time but some grammar person out there, I have to do it, you’ll have to I’ll explain it to you when we get done recording. But reading it out loud is a great thing to do. So anyway, we died, we digress for the multiple times on this episode. Alright, and then you can you can set it. Once you’ve got your your batch together and you’ve got it going. It’s like the cookies, you get to eat them out of the jar all week. So it’s it’s kind of a setup, but you can’t quite forget it situation. So especially with social media, the actual posting of the social media is only part of your social media program. There’s also all of the other parts of your social media program, the interaction, the responses, the sharing the all of the other things that you need to be doing with your social media that you can’t really batch because they need to happen more in the moment. And also Cara brought up another really good point when we batch especially content, there’s times when your content will conflict with current events. So you really need to kind of be watching what’s posting up. So for example, you don’t want to make a social foe pa and that maybe there’s some huge fires out west and you have a post on setting your business on fire or something that would be in poor taste. So you can’t just forget it, you’ve got to you’ve got to check in with your social media, once you have the posts scheduled in particular, so that you know that what you’re doing is appropriate to what’s going on. If you need to make a pivot, or you need to make a change, you have the knowledge to do that. And you don’t do something silly. And as bad as what the example I just gave, that’s a really innocuous, I mean, you could definitely use that analogy. And then some world event happens that changes the way people would view that particular post. And that has happened on numerous times to my clients and to myself. So it’s a routine occurrence, where you do need to be sensitive about what you do put out on social media, and when you batch things, sometimes they roll and the computer does not procrastinate it publishes.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  34:02  

So yeah, I’ve definitely had times where I have batched out content, and then something happens, you know, some kind of world event happens or you know, just something that socially conscious, you know, world conscious I need to be aware of, and I’ll run and check, like what was scheduled for today. Because if it you know isn’t appropriate for the world events that are happening around me that one may need to be pulled or changed or, you know, amended in some way so that it represents that you are present in the world today. Like you’re not just putting stuff out there and forgetting about it. batching is a wonderful concept. And it’s a beautiful thing and it helps you get things done, but your audience, they shouldn’t necessarily know that you’re batching right, like they should see it as like it’s happening today. It’s happening, you know, within the world that’s around us. So if your content doesn’t make sense for what’s happening in the world around you, then that’s a problem. So I definitely say like we said set it and kinda of forget it, but be thinking about what’s happening in the world around you. At the same time, because you may need to go back and check some of that stuff,

 

Kimberly Beer  35:03  

definitely keep an eye on things. And, and again, you do have to interact. Social media is about interaction. And if you make posts and people interact, that was the goal. So you need to be responsive to people when they do interact with you on social media, and that that does take your attention on a regular basis. So we hope you have enjoyed this episode on batching. And we hope we’ve made it a little bit fun and entertaining to talk about what is usually a very dry subject. It is pretty dry, it’s still excites me though. I like that I like batching

 

Cara Taylor Swift  35:42  

It’s still pretty dry,

 

Kimberly Beer  35:43  

I still get kind of giddy over. I like the brainstorming part. I’m going to be flat honest, I really like that part. The actual doing part I really want to assign to somebody else the coming up with a batch.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  35:55  

I like the setting it and kind of forgetting it part.

 

Kimberly Beer  35:58  

so everybody has their favorite part. What’s your favorite part of the batching? process? Let us know on social media. Let us know you can batch that into your social media batches. Because we would love to, to hear from you. Just to review our big three, will you take us out Cara?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  36:16  

That’s right. So in terms of batching, you got to get everything else out of the way we talked a little bit about setting up your research, scheduling, you know, planning for no distractions, your work environment. So you just got to get everything else out of the way so you can get started, then you’ve got to gather all of your ingredients. This is your brainstorming time. And it’s the kind of the collecting and the gathering of all of the important elements time and then the third piece is showing up and doing it because what’s the point of all the other stuff if you don’t actually show up and do it right. So those are the three things that we want you to consider with batching. We apologize that this was such a boring episode. We hope that you will tune in next week and that you won’t write us off forever. And have a great week guys like get out there and batch the heck out of some stuff and make us proud.

 

Jaz  37:03  

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you learned something today, leave us a review. To learn more, find us at The Business animal.com we’d love to hear from you. Until next time, keep your business well trained with The Business Animal