Time & Structure

The Stack Play: Your Plan for Batching Small Tasks

Rhema Adelaja · National Champion & 4x DUX · August 2026 · 6 min read

Small tasks constantly interrupt your week and steal your focus. This is a clear method to group those tasks, get them done in one go, and win back your mental energy for training and study.

Your phone buzzes. It is an email from your tutor. You open it, read it, and decide to reply later. Then a message comes through on the team group chat. You answer that quickly. Then you remember you need to book a physio appointment. You open another app. Before you know it, thirty minutes have passed. You have been busy, but you have not actually finished anything important.

This was my reality for years. I felt like I was constantly working, but my main goals in sport and academics were moving forward so slowly. My to-do list was a monster that never shrank. The problem was not the number of tasks. The problem was the constant switching between them.

Every time you switch from one type of task to another, your brain pays a price. It is called context switching. Think of it like a mental warm-up and cool-down. Reading a research paper requires one mindset. Replying to a message requires another. Switching between them forces your brain to constantly readjust. This process wastes huge amounts of mental energy and time. In fact, research shows that constantly switching between tasks can decrease productivity by as much as 40 percent.

For a student-athlete, this is a disaster. Your schedule is already packed. You do not have 40 percent of your productivity to waste. The pressure is immense, with many student-athletes feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities. The small, nagging tasks build up. They create a low level of constant stress in the back of your mind. This mental clutter makes it harder to focus when it truly matters, whether that is on the field or in an exam. Your brain's working memory gets overloaded, which hinders learning and performance when you need to make quick decisions.

The solution is not to work more hours. It is to work with more focus. It is to stop switching and start stacking.

Introducing The Stack Play

The Stack Play is my term for a simple system. It is also known as task batching. You group all your similar, small, repetitive tasks together. Then you do them all in one dedicated, focused session. That is it. It is not complicated, but it is powerful.

Think about your training sessions. A good coach does not make you do one sprint, then one pass, then one weights exercise, then repeat that cycle. That would be chaotic and inefficient. Instead, you have a block for speed work. You have a block for skills. You have a block for strength. You are already using this principle in your sport. The Stack Play is about applying that same logic to the rest of your life.

When I started doing this, everything changed. I stopped reacting to every notification. I started telling my time where to go. The feeling of control was immediate. My mind felt clearer. I had more energy for my training and my studies because the small stuff was handled. It was all organised into its own box.

How to Build Your Stack Play

This system has two parts. First, you need to find your stacks. Second, you need to schedule them.

1. Find Your Stacks

Your first job is to identify all the small, recurring tasks that fill your week. Do not judge them. Just list them. Get a piece of paper and write down everything you can think of that takes 15 minutes or less and happens regularly.

Your list might include things like:

It could also include booking appointments, paying bills, planning your meals for the week, or downloading lecture notes from your university portal. Once you have your list, your next job is to group them into stacks based on the type of task. You are looking for themes.

For example, you could create these three stacks:

  1. Communications Stack: All your emails and messages.
  2. Life Admin Stack: Laundry, meal prep, booking appointments.
  3. Academic Admin Stack: Checking your student portal, organising notes, planning your study schedule.

Give each stack a simple name. These are your plays. Now you know what you need to do. The next step is to decide when you will do it.

2. Schedule Your Stacks

Look at your weekly calendar. Find specific blocks of time to run your plays. I suggest starting with two or three stacks per week. Maybe you schedule a 45-minute Communications Stack on Tuesday afternoon. And a 90-minute Life Admin Stack on Sunday morning. Put it in your calendar like it is a real appointment. Because it is.

When the time arrives, you must defend it. This is the most important part. For that 45-minute block, you do nothing but what is in that stack. If it is your Communications Stack, you open your email and your messaging apps. You do not open social media. You do not start homework. You put your phone on 'Do Not Disturb' and you focus.

This is crucial because every single interruption pulls you out of your focused state. Studies show that it takes over 20 minutes to fully refocus on a task after being interrupted. By protecting your scheduled block from interruptions, you avoid that time cost. You get in, you execute, and you get out. You will be amazed at how much you can get done in 45 minutes of pure, uninterrupted focus.

The Result: A Calmer, More Focused Week

When you handle your small tasks this way, you are not just getting them done more efficiently. You are also clearing your mind. You will no longer have that nagging feeling that you have forgotten something. You know that all your emails will be answered on Tuesday. You know your laundry will be done on Sunday. The mental space this frees up is enormous.

This saved energy can then be invested in the things that truly move the needle for you. Deeper focus during film review. Higher quality reps in the gym. Better concentration when writing an important essay. You perform better everywhere because you are not being drained by a thousand tiny cuts throughout your week.

Your first step is simple. Take ten minutes this week. Write down all your small, repetitive tasks. Then, group them into three stacks. Just name them. That is your only goal. Write them on a sticky note and put it on your desk. This simple act of organising the chaos is the start of you taking back control of your time and your focus.