Do you feel that there are more tasks to handle than there are hours in the day? Do you find yourself to be too busy and stressed out all the time? As women entrepreneurs, working from home and out of home, stay at home moms, students managing studies with their jobs, we have a lot more on our plates than our mothers ever had. Thus, we need to be more efficient with our time and energy and how we need to set the direction of our efforts and schedule:

What is Task-Stacking

Here is one productivity hack that I have personally found to be helpful. It’s called task-stacking. It means that you batch together similar items and try to execute them together, one after another. This method is effective for personal tasks as well as professional ones.

Examples of Task-Stacking

Here are some examples of task-stacking:

Since my partner and I are both consultants, we often are working from the home and have meals at home. When I am cooking, I try to cook two or three dishes together and freeze them to save time and energy. This reduces the need to cook from scratch everyday and saves time and energy. Of course, I cook those dishes together that need some type of ingredients and follow the same processes, as they require lesser assembly time and post cleanup.

Likewise, if I have to respond to a couple of emails, I try to do them together so I don’t have to switch into the communicative mode again and again. Similarly, if I have vendor payments and various bills to pay, I try to do them together, irrespective of when they are due, so as to save myself time and mental stress.

Another area where I stack together tasks is shopping for or ordering things together. For instance, when buying groceries, I tend to go to that shopping mart which enables me to get all the grocery items, be it fresh produce or dairy or meat, together, under one roof. This way I save the time required in going out again and again, and I also save commute time and money as well.

The Benefits of Task-Stacking

When you perform similar or related tasks together, here is what happens:

• The time to transition from one task to another gets reduced.
• There are lesser repetitive actions; and consequently, lesser physical and mental energy is consumed.  
• You get more done in lesser time
• There is also lesser downtime.
• You would be less busy and stressed and get more free time or ‘me-time’.
  

How to Decide to Stack Tasks

Here are a few things that need to be kept in mind when stacking things:

Plan First

Deciding which tasks can be successfully combined requires you to plan ahead all that you need to do in a do or a week or even a month.

Have a To-Do List

A physical or at least a mental To-Do list is integral for stacking tasks.

Understand the Importance and Urgency of Tasks

If you are aware of the level of importance of a task and its urgency in the hierarchy of your To-Do things, you can place it appropriately in your list and then stack it  together with something suitable.

Understand the Level of Involvement Required

Tasks can’t be stacked together on whims and choices. You need to understand what level of mental and physical involvement and attention a task requires. You can stack together things that need to be done in the same proximity. But you cannot stack together two tasks requiring critical level of attention or requiring same physical energy or else you would end up messing both of them.

Don’t Over-stack Tasks

It is tempting to stack together a lot of things in an attempt to get more done in less time, but it kills the purpose, unfortunately. Utmost, try to stack together two tasks only, so you can execute them successfully. Stacking tasks blindly, without planning and carrying them out in a haphazard way, creates more stress than relief. It’s just like multitasking, which diminishes your attention span, lowers the quality of your work and creates mental stress.

Task-Stacking is Not for Everyone

If you feel that task-stacking doesn’t work well for you, then don’t do it. Remember, we are all wired differently. What works for one may not work for everyone. So adopt any other productivity hack that works well for you!   

Conclusion

Being productive is a deliberate choice which needs effort, intuition and commitment. You can be very busy, but may not have anything to show at the end of the day. Task-stacking is a productivity hack that helps us batch together two tasks which are similar in nature in some way or need to be done at the same place and in the same order. It enables people to get two similar things done and out of their way in lesser time.