Batching

According to science as spoken about by Andrew Huberman, there is a natural rhythm to the cycle of focus that is available to us during the day. That is, there are periods of the day where alertness is higher and periods where alertness is lower. This serves us well for focused tasks.

What if we can take control of this focus through practice. You would still need some interval of rest for stores of the chemicals responsible for focus and attention to reup. But if you could batch your work and tasks according to this natural “ultradian rhythm”, discover your minimum but optimum rest time in between the next session, this would be the most productive you could be in any given day. These are about 90 minutes a session and are available to us but not in an unlimited number per day. They should be reserved for the toughest mental tasks, required for that day. This means that you can still do work in other parts of the day outside these sessions, but don’t expect it to be your best work.

As artists, this is good news for how long a session of work for a given project should be. We can cycle in and out of these sessions of higher mental capacity to do our best work and the mundane repetitive tasks that require less attention in between or just take breaks for rest, food and exercise.