What batching means and why it matters
Batching is the practice of grouping similar low-cognitive tasks together into a single scheduled window rather than handling each one as it arrives. Instead of answering emails as they come in throughout the day, you handle all email in a 30-minute window at 10am and a 30-minute window at 4pm.
The benefit is twofold. First, context switching between different types of tasks carries a cognitive cost — moving from deep coding to answering an email and back is more expensive than it appears. Second, batching creates predictable windows of focus time between the batches, which is harder to achieve when shallow tasks are continuous.
Which tasks belong in a shallow work batch
A shallow work batch is for tasks that do not require sustained concentration: email, Slack messages, calendar management, form submissions, quick document reviews, expense reports, scheduling, and brief notifications.
Tasks that require decision-making, creative thinking, or sustained analysis do not belong in a batch. These are deep work tasks. The distinction is not about importance but about cognitive load: shallow tasks can be interrupted and resumed without significant cost; deep tasks cannot.
Useful test: if you could do this task while holding a conversation with someone, it is probably shallow work. If you need focused silence to do it well, it is deep work and belongs in a block, not a batch.
How to set up batching in Google Calendar
Create two recurring events per day: a morning shallow batch (30–45 minutes, after the deep work block or first meeting) and an afternoon shallow batch (30 minutes, around 4–4:30pm before the workday ends).
Name the events specifically: 'Email + Slack batch' is better than 'Admin time.' Set them to recur on weekdays. Do not mark them Busy — these windows are fine to schedule meetings over occasionally. The pattern matters; the specific instances are flexible.
What happens between the batches
The time between batches is your protected focus time. With two 30-minute shallow windows per day, the remaining five or six hours of working time become structurally available for deep work — because you have committed to not checking email or Slack until the next batch.
This requires turning off notifications during focus periods. Not silencing them — turning them off. 'Available but not watching' still creates the pull to check. 'Notifications off' removes the pull entirely and makes the focus time more reliable.
How Schedule Calendar helps
One of the challenges with batching is knowing how much time remains before the next shallow work window — so you know whether you have enough time to start something substantial before checking messages is appropriate.
Schedule Calendar shows the time to your next event in the browser toolbar. During a deep work session, you can glance at it and see whether the next batch is in 20 minutes or 90 minutes — which changes what you choose to start.
Batching is not about ignoring messages — it is about responding to them on your schedule rather than theirs. Two daily windows for communication is responsive by any reasonable standard; it just concentrates the cost rather than distributing it through the day.
Frequently asked questions
Shallow work batching means grouping low-cognitive tasks (email, Slack, admin, quick reviews) into defined calendar windows rather than handling each one as it arrives. Instead of continuous task-switching throughout the day, you concentrate these tasks into two or three scheduled periods.
Two is the practical standard for most roles: one in the morning (after a focus block or first meeting) and one in the afternoon (before the workday ends). Very reactive roles may need three. The goal is concentration, not elimination — the batches still exist, they just have boundaries.
Tasks that can be interrupted and resumed without significant cognitive cost: email, Slack messages, scheduling, form submissions, expense reports, quick document reviews, light administrative work. Tasks requiring sustained concentration — writing, coding, analysis — are deep work and belong in dedicated blocks.
A response within 2–4 hours is considered timely in most professional contexts. Two daily batch windows guarantee that most messages receive a response within half a day, which meets or exceeds the responsiveness expectation in most organizations. Setting an out-of-office note that explains your batching windows helps manage expectations.
Turn off email and Slack notifications during focus periods — not silence, but fully off. The difference matters: silenced notifications still create a pull to check. No notifications remove the trigger. Most people find that after a week, the pull to check between batches diminishes significantly.
Yes, with adjustment. Roles that require genuinely immediate responses (emergency support, certain sales situations) can use batching for non-urgent communication while keeping one channel (phone, specific Slack channel) available for true urgencies. The distinction between 'urgent' and 'marked urgent by the sender' is important to establish.