Back in the dark ages when mainframes ruled the earth, real time processing was an unknown concept. You would create the instructions for the work you wanted performed on punch cards or magnetic tape, hand it to the mainframe operators, cross your fingers and wait until the next day for the results. If you made even the tiniest typo the result would be a cart full of errors messages printed on blue and white striped mainframe paper.
Today this seems like an archaic way of working, but if the computing time is expensive it makes perfect sense. Overnight the mainframe would be working at 100% capacity completing one job after another. Now that computing power is essentially free, most computing is done in real time: you write a word and immediately the word processor will check the spelling. You want to check the latest news and immediately your desktop computer will start a web browser and load your favorite news page. Your computer is at your beck and call and switches from one task to another at your whim. Is your computer working efficiently? Absolutely not. Probably 99% of the computer’s processing power is wasted. But since it’s essentially free, it doesn’t matter.
In the Attention Age your attention and your time are the scarcest resources. To be an efficient entrepreneur you need to make the absolute best use of these scarce resources. One way is to use the concept of batch processing. Process all your emails between 11:00 and 11:30. During this time you will be paying full attention to nothing but your emails and you will work at 100% capacity processing them.
Do you think that will be a more efficient way to handle your emails than to interrupt your other work each time a new email arrives? Add up all those 5 minute interruptions in a day, then add the 25 minutes it takes you to get back to the task that you interrupted, and it’s no wonder you don’t get much done in a day. Maybe the old mainframes can still teach us a trick or two.
Keep in mind that this batching strategy is not limited to emails. It applies just as well to physical mail, paying bills, checking and returning voice mails. One of the few things that are difficult to do in batch mode are meetings. Read Seth Godin to learn some excellent ways to completely change the meeting dynamic in your company.
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