December 18, 2024

An unexpected benefit of niching down

Fellow list member Nick Tucker wrote in to share an observation he had when going from a tightly defined niche to a new, more loosely defined one (shared with permission):

Thanks for the work you do, Jonathan.

Something that cropped up recently for me was the value in niching in reducing context switching costs / overhead.

In the past I was super niched writing technical PR content for livestock feed suppliers. In hindsight (see below), I can see that even with several clients, I was doing very similar work for all of them. I might be writing a draft article for one, then switching to emailing a journalist to place another, or proofreading another. But it was all very related, used the same workflows and was tracked in the same spreadsheet.

I realise that my context switching was what I’d call ‘shallow’, and the time and energy cost of switching was low.

Contrast that with where I’m at now, still trying to land in a new niche after five years pivoting to ‘more meaningful work’. Even with just two clients, the work I do is so varied that the context switching cost is huge. It’s ‘deep’ context switching. From uploading content to a Squarespace website to handling applications to join an online community. From working in Wix for one client to Squarespace for another (definitely medium depth context switching as they’re so different). And from mapping out a digital tool stack to hosting open space video calls for the community.

I’ve not heard you mention the value of niching in terms of reduced context switching cost, though you might well have done. I imagine it’s huge for many of us.

Cheers,

Nick

This is a great observation, and it makes total sense.

The more niched down you are on a specific type of client, the more similar their needs will be, and the less varied your areas of involvement are likely to be.

Another benefit of niching!

Yours,

—J