There is a practice in retail management known as “intelligent adjacency.” It means placing complementary items next to each other, like toothbrushes and toothpaste, so that when a customer finds one item, the proximity of the complementary item makes it more likely they’ll buy both.
The practice of clustering is about finding intelligent adjacencies within your work and clustering your efforts to keep you engaged and focused more deeply and for longer periods of time. By doing this you minimize the psychological cost of switching tasks and constantly having to refocus your efforts. There are several benefits to clustering your work:
Limiting Focus Shifts
Each time you break from what you’re doing to focus on something else, you lose traction, and regaining it takes more time than you may think. If you cluster similar kinds of work into blocks of time dedicated to the work, the penalty for these focus shifts is minimized. For example, clustering all your e-mail into one session, or several sessions broken up throughout your day, prevents the focus shift that occurs each time you leave your creative work to see what’s in your inbox.
Unexpected Breakthroughs
As you cluster similar work you will begin to notice reoccurring patterns and areas of potential overlap. You may also find that there are similar issues you’re facing on different projects that stem from the same source. As a result, clustering can lead to conceptual breakthroughs. For example, a discarded idea for one project may be perfectly appropriate for another, or research that you’re doing for one client may yield an unexpected insight for another client. These breakthroughs may never have occurred if your workflow was fragmented rather than clustered.
Improved Flow
Because you are focusing for longer periods on similar work, you will experience a greater sense of immersion in the work, making it more likely to have a breakthrough (and more likely you’ll enjoy the work). You can dive deeper with an oxygen tank than if you have to resurface every few minutes for air. The net result is that you will spend more concentrated time thinking deeply about the problems you are facing and will be more likely to get to the brilliant ideas that often take time to emerge.
* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry