Let’s Talk about Clusterfeeding

Clusterfeeding is when a baby started eating much more frequently- in clusters- for a period of time. When Archer was about 6 weeks old, she started cluster-feedgin from about 4pm-8:30pm – and then, like the little miracle baby that she is, she started sleeping through the night – in 11 hour chunks. 

 Let me tell you, I will gladly feed her three or four times in a four-hour stretch if it means I get an uninterrupted 7+ hours of sleep at night. 

And I realized recently that clusterfeeding is a lot like batch working.

Batch working  is highly focused, topic-specific work, where you dedicated different days or hours to one topic instead of jumping from task to task.

Time is a limited resource, and for much of my adult life I have been obsessed with making MY time produce maximum value.

As a store manager at Starbucks, I wrote what I lovingly dubbed “A Treatise on Deployment” to help other drive thru managers keep their multiple customer-facing touchpoints operating smoothly.

In my agency career, I was constantly looking for ways to remove grit from our service delivery process.

And when Marlowe was born a few months after I started Erica Walter Writes, I invented the newborn Pomodoro method, which you can learn all about by listening to episode 21

Three years later, the Erica Walter Writes empire is in a totally different place, both in services offered, clients supported, and shoot – I have an employee. And our family is in a different place too – we’ve got a kid In school, two little girls in all-day preschool, and you already know about Archer… the demands on my time are even greater.

BATCH WORK IS EVERYTHING. And it’s totally like clusterfeeding. 

With clusterfeeding, I’m dedicating a big chunk of my life to just being a human feedbag. In return, I get an uninterrupted night’s sleep and a much happier Baby.

With batch work, I’m dedicating a chunk of my work week to specific tasks without task switching, and In return I’m hoping to be rewarded with an uninterrupted stretch of business success.

Here are a few ways I’m using batch work that you may find helpful in your own work hours.

FIRST OF ALL: I keep my best hours sacred.

I’m more creative, energized, and focused in the morning, but I can’t get my best work done in those hours if I’m constantly rushig to personal appointments, or stacking back to back Zoom meetings in that window. If I fill those hours with meetings or personal appointments I find that my weeks almost unfailingly go off the rails.  When I’m intentional about keeping my mornings sacred I not only get better work done, I can get more of it done. 

Now you might work better in the afternoon, or in the wee small hours of the night. If you have no idea when your best hours are, start paying attention: when are you most energized? If you get into a flow, take note – what tine is it?  You are now officially on a mission to find your best hours. Preserve a 3 hour chunk to start, then slowly work your way up to 4, 5, even 6 hours of uninterrupted time to focus.

STEP TWO: Put your most important work in those best hours:

With Archer, I know I have to avoid appointments or tasks in that 4-8:30 cluster window if I want to get that good nights sleep. And with my business, I plan to do the high leverage jobs that I’m the best at doing in those magical hours when I find I’m operating at my best. We’re talking about copywriting, content strategy, the stuff that helps my clients get the best results. 

Once  you know your best hours, the next thing you need to do is start designing your work days so that more of your best work is scheduled in those best windows of time.  Don’t know what those best work type tasks might be?

Make a list of the things you do on a day to day basis and highlight the work you enjoy most that also serves your role, company, or customers the best.  Think about the stuff that gets you ahead. The work or tasks that you get the most comments and feedback from your coworkers or customers about. Think about work you do that keeps things flowing smoothly – are there tasks that, if you don’t get them done well or quickly, they create bottle necks in your business? This is the kind of work you should try to put in the sacred best hours.

Those two simple strategies to optimize your work day are like a one-two punch for getting more work done in less time. Clusterfeeding lessons applies to business logic, and you thought it couldn’t be done!

BUT here’s a bonus tip that will push it all over the top.

GET HELP.

You see, I’m the ONLY person in my household capable of feeding a baby with my body. I’m literally the ONLY person for the job. In your business, your side hustle, your LIFE, there are tasks that ONLY you can do. They’re your secret sauce. And there are things in your business, side hustle, and your LIFE that still need to be done, but don’t have to be done by you. 

If you’re having a hard time getting traction, it might be time to ask the question: 

Is this something that I need to be doing?

And if it is something someone else can do, you need to ask for help.

When we’re in cluster feed mode – I’m not making dinner, I’m not loading the dishwasher, I’m not changing over the laundry. Those are all things that arguably need to be done, but not necessarily by me. Because I need to be feeding my baby during those hours, I ask for help from the rest of my family to get the other necessities done. 

I can already hear you making excuses – sure ,other people could do it, but what if they aren’t as good at it as I am? Won’t asking for help make me look incompetent? 

If you DON’T get help, eventually you will be unable to do all the things you keep taking on, and everything you do will be less competent 

Now, you may never have fed a baby with your body, but I bet that anybody listening to this has experienced a desire to get more done, has said the phrase “There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day.”

 My goal is to help you unlock more productivity, more fulfillment from your work, and slowly but surely get a little more traction towards that dream you’re building. Identify your best hours, and make them sacred. Prioritize your highest leverage work in those sacred hours, and if you find you’re still spinning your tires it’s a sign that you need to ask for help. 

Set a goal to try this out for at least one day this week, and check in with yourself at the end of the week. How did it feel to clsuterfeed your baby, I mean batch work your highest priority tasks? Can you add another day the next week? 

When you get more out of your time, you might just find yourself sleeping like a baby for the first time in a long time.