Do you get everything you want done in a day, a week, or a month?
Written for Farm Futures and originally published in their Nov/Dec 2024 issue.
As we work with our clients, we see recurring themes that are key for farms to accelerate their growth. Time management of the owners and key employees is a key differentiator for scaling farms up.
Stephen Covey, author of the popular book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” created a time matrix to sort tasks by importance and urgency. We have used his concepts in our coaching and can attest it’s an eye-opener when business owners look at how they spend their time.
#4 – Time Wasters:
These are time sinks of idle items that pull your attention away from work that matters. While entertaining, these don’t add any value. Sometimes, watching YouTube while operating field equipment can have expensive outcomes. Idle chit-chat and checking social media fall into this category. The solution is to avoid these activities until the day’s work is done.
#3 Interruptions & Busy Work:
These items are urgent but not for you. Maybe these once fell within your responsibilities, but today, you have other, more important things to do. It’s time to give these up.
This is where you can free up time by delegating to others. When you detail the outcome you want and have confidence that the employees will work out the details, your time will be freed up. Guaranteed.
A hard thing about quadrant 3 is there are often many “fun” things you like doing in this category. Things like driving tractors, turning wrenches, etc. Tasks you are skilled at and enjoy. Ultimately, you must look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Only a few people in your organization can do the tasks in Quadrants 1 and 2; your time is best spent there. So, be intentional when doing tasks in Quadrant 3. Pick and choose which tasks you keep and which to let go.
#1 Daily Firefighting:
These need immediate attention and cannot be delegated. There are two types: Ones you could not foresee and others you have left to the last minute. You can avoid the latter by planning and avoiding procrastination. Crises, on the other hand, cannot always be foreseen. It’s best to leave some time to handle these unexpected issues in your schedule each day.
#2 Focus on the Big Picture:
This quadrant is the most important for farmers when scaling up. Becoming good in this area will lower stress, increase profits, strengthen teams, and create a smooth business flow. When you can spend more and more time in this area, your farm will become increasingly scalable. This is a bold statement, but I’ve seen it work.
Activities in this quadrant all fall into working ON your business. Some examples:
- Finding good people and making your farm a compelling place to work.
- Building structure, alignment, and focusing your teams efforts.
- Meeting with your key managers to whom you have delegated responsibility.
- Building robust financial reporting and metrics to know where your farm is at all times.
- Looking for new opportunities to grow or improve profitability.
- Working on transition planning and strategic planning.
You might think none of this looks interesting or fun. If so, there are a couple of options. Hire high-level employees for this role. This could be a CFO to manage the finances and provide financial projections. Or it could be someone who manages employees, trains them, and does employee reviews. Many of these high-level roles are expensive and still need clear direction from you, so think through this carefully before jumping in.