Batch tasks and go on an information diet
Process email and news in scheduled batches rather than reacting to them continuously.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Process email and news in scheduled batches rather than reacting to them continuously.
- Why it works: Continuous partial attention — scanning for new information all day — interrupts deep work, imposes switching costs, and creates a treadmill of urgency that is cognitively expensive without proportional benefit. Batching collapses a stream of micro-interruptions into one or two focused processing sessions, freeing attention blocks for higher-value work and rest.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Batching email but leaving Slack, social media, and news notifications running continuously, which preserves the interruption problem while only reducing one channel.
Why it works
Continuous partial attention — scanning for new information all day — interrupts deep work, imposes switching costs, and creates a treadmill of urgency that is cognitively expensive without proportional benefit. Batching collapses a stream of micro-interruptions into one or two focused processing sessions, freeing attention blocks for higher-value work and rest.
How to do it
- 1Set two fixed times per day for email and messages — morning and mid-afternoon, for instance.
- 2Close notifications entirely between those windows.
- 3Assess news and social feeds: is each source improving your decisions? If not, cut it.
- 4For one week, consume zero news and notice what actually required you to know it.
What the evidence says
ObservationalAttention residue research shows that even brief interruptions impair performance on a subsequent task; reducing notification-driven interruptions is consistent with that mechanism.
Honest caveat: The batching strategy is practitioner-developed; attention residue research supports the underlying mechanism but the specific "two checks per day" threshold is a heuristic, not an empirically optimized number.
- — Leroy (2009), attention residue and task switching, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Common mistake
Batching email but leaving Slack, social media, and news notifications running continuously, which preserves the interruption problem while only reducing one channel.
IX Coach helps you identify which information streams are genuinely decision-relevant and which are anxiety-masquerading-as-productivity, and redesigns your information environment accordingly.
Practice this with IX Coach →