Batch Processing as an IndieDev
Since trying to take on marketing as an IndieDev, I've felt overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to get done. It wasn't until I started batch processing, that I started to get ahead.
Who bakes one cookie at a time?
Creating Margin
Taking on the IndieDev world by yourself sure is overwhelming. Since starting this journey, I've felt incredibly overwhelmed.
The way I went about it, was by researching what IndieDev's struggled with the most and making sure I knew how to do that best to make sure I don't fail at the others. So I started to focus on marketing.
While my marketing education and skills continue to grow, there are some days that I don't get any development done on my game, The Valley.
It wasn't until I started to make my IndieDev memes, that I realized I could get ahead by doing things all at once, and then take a break to concentrate on GameDev for the rest of the month.
What I Do
Getting noticed in a noisy IndieDev scene is hard, and trying to switch constantly between tasks can be draining.
In the book, The One Thing, great book I've written about before, the author says this about task switching:
Bounce between one activity and another and you lost time as your brain reorients to the new task. Those milliseconds add up. Researchers estimate we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness.
So with all the social networks, and trying to get a hold of all of them, what can we do? Well you can batch process.
Batch Processing
Batch processing means doing alot of similar things all at once. People don't bake one cookie at a time, instead they make all the batter at once and get alot of cookies created.
Here's some ideas that I've done, or plan on doing in the future
- If you have an artist, schedule your Tumblr art sketches all at once for the month, complete with ideas, and thoughts. Check back daily for interactions. I did this for my memes.
- If you're doing blog posts, write all your blog posts out a month in advance. This blog post is one of them.
- If you're doing tweets, schedule the non-time specific posts on each day of the week during peak audience times, and tweet what you're thinking when you want to.
- Similarly, with Facebook, schedule your posts earlier in the week or month.
- Reply to your Tweets and Facebook conversations at certain times of the day, rather than leaving it up all the time, and constantly being distracted.
- Check your email twice a day and that's it!
While not everything can be done at once, like development updates, batch processing can help in many areas.
While I haven't figured out quite how this applies to non-marketing / business aspects of being an IndieDev, hopefully this will help you to get through the process.
What do you batch process as an IndieDev? Let me know in the comments below.
