Use case
How to batch similar tasks in ToDowl
Task batching means grouping small, similar tasks together and working through all of them in one sitting instead of stopping for each one the moment it comes to mind. A quick email, a two-minute call, an invoice to send - none of them need their own interruption, and none of them need to happen the instant they land on the list.
Multitaskers
Why the interruption costs more than the task
A two-minute task rarely takes two minutes once the surrounding context switch is counted. Answering one email in the middle of writing a proposal means leaving the proposal, reading the email, replying, and finding the thread back into the proposal - and that last step is the expensive one. Batching does not make any single task faster. It removes the four or five extra exits and re-entries a scattered day is full of.
Multitaskers
A list just for the batch
Inside a ToDowl project, a list named for the batch - "Quick admin," "Calls to return," "Emails to send" - holds every task that fits the pattern, separate from the list where the actual project work lives. Adding something to it takes the same few seconds as adding any other task: a title, and a priority if one of them genuinely cannot wait for the batch.
Multitaskers
Watching the batch shrink on the board
Switching the project to Kanban view turns the batch list into its own column, so working through it is a visible countdown - six cards, then four, then done - rather than a list that quietly loses and regains items all day as new ones interrupt old ones.
Multitaskers
A recurring task that starts the batch itself
A recurring task like "Run the admin batch" set for a fixed time each day or each Friday afternoon is the trigger, not a to-do in itself: it shows up on schedule, and working it means clearing whatever landed in the batch list since the last round, then moving on.
Try it yourself
Setting this up in ToDowl takes a couple of minutes - start with one project and add only what is described above.
Start for freeWhere to go next
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The Eisenhower Matrix sorts tasks by urgent and important. ToDowl has no four-quadrant grid, but priority and due dates already sort tasks the same way.
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