In the previous post, I argued in favour of tackling small tasks immediately. But there is a huge disadvantage to the OHIO approach, too.

Suppose you are working on something great: that article that you want to finalise, a customer file that you need to finish. Suddenly, an e-mail comes in. You switch, answer the e-mail quickly and switch back. What happens?

Interruptions like this are detrimental to the quality as well as the quantity of your work. They interrupt your flow and it costs you 15 minutes or more to recover.

This shows that there are two parts of the equation to take into account: startup/recover costs and processing costs. This applies to almost anything that takes time.

In the e-mail example above, the recover cost is clearly very high. The best way to handle e-mail is to do it in bulk. Close your mailbox while working and open it 3-4 times each day to process what’s new.

Another example my dad told me a long time ago, is playing tennis. If you have two balls and play one, you should leave it where it is. Play the second ball, then collect both. That’s because the startup/recover cost is high: you interrupt your game and your flow. So you should limit the number of times you collect balls.

The same goes for shopping. If you have to drive to a supermarket, it’s better to “bulk process” your shopping: it costs a lot of time to get there and to get out. On the other hand, if you have a small show on the way home, you can pick up just what you need every day. The cost of the shopping diversion is quite low.

At work or in your daily life, you can use this approach to decide to do something now or later. If the job is small and the impact is low, do it now. If the impact is high, save it until later. Similar jobs may come in that you can bulk-process. Or you can do it when you finished what you’re doing now. In both cases, the impact on your current work is much lower.