{"id":262,"date":"2009-10-11T17:21:32","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T00:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farmingforprofits.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2010-03-14T04:29:57","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T11:29:57","slug":"get-your-priorities-straight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Get your priorities straight."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sometimes you can really do it all.\u00a0 Calm down, men.\u00a0 I am not about to tell you how to multitask.\u00a0 I’ve been married for 10 years.\u00a0 I concede that men cannot multitask.\u00a0 Even if they wanted to (which they don’t).\u00a0\u00a0 I’m talking about prioritizing<\/strong>.\u00a0 A farm may be\u00a0 plagued by disasters, overpopulated, out resourced, and have occupants alternating between panic and apathy.\u00a0 All before 7am. \u00a0 But it can be beaten into orderly and productive\u00a0 submission with a Type A bludgeoning.\u00a0 I am just the Type A person to do it.\u00a0 So you don’t have to choose between replacing that piece of tin over the brooder room before the forecasted downpour or finding the hole in the fence where the livestock guardian dog keeps sliding out to “protect” the goats from the neighbor’s tabby cat.\u00a0 Get it all done with this simple prioritization guideline:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Emergencies first<\/span>.\u00a0 This may seem obvious.\u00a0 But on a farm, emergencies can be so commonplace that one tends to get jaded.\u00a0 For example last month I was working on a chicken coop when Little ran onto the deck screaming, “Mom, hurry, Middle cut his finger off!!!!!!”\u00a0 I finished my last poultry staple, gathered my tools, put away my work gloves, and ambled to the house.\u00a0 I eventually opened the door to find Middle with a very bloody towel wrapped around his entire hand.\u00a0 My first thought was:\u00a0 Oh good, they didn’t use the nice dishcloths.\u00a0 My second thought was:\u00a0 Jeez, there’s a lot of blood on the floor.\u00a0 Someone should wipe that up while it’s still wet.\u00a0 See, I have trouble distinguishing an emergency on occasion.\u00a0 So be sure to first ask yourself if anything happening could require emergency attention.\u00a0 If so, deal with it immediately. (Just FYI– a child can cut the tip of his finger off with children’s safety scissors.\u00a0 Go figure.)<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Start small.<\/span> Knock out those annoying small to-do’s that are always cluttering up your limited mind space.\u00a0 Did you know that psychologist George Miller discovered the average short term memory can only hold seven items, plus or minus two?\u00a0 Therefore, it pays to do the quick, easy tasks first so that you can concentrate on the larger jobs without distraction.\u00a0 For example if you need to bleach the water trough, refill the oyster shell,\u00a0 find the hoof pick, replace the u-pin in the trailer hitch, muck the kidding stall, and……wait, what was I talking about?\u00a0 Oh yeah, the Steve Miller band.\u00a0 No, that doesn’t seem right……<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Never give up<\/span>.\u00a0 At some point during the construction of a do-it-yourself\u00a0 $50 hoop house with plans printed off the internet, you will realize that it cannot actually be done.\u00a0 That the internet posting was just a cruel joke by some sick city slicker with garden envy.\u00a0 Or an ambitious home improvement store employee seeking a promotion by driving up profits on the backs of poor, defenseless, do-it-yourselfers.\u00a0 Don’t despair.\u00a0 It can<\/span> be done—it will just cost way more than $50 and sure as hell won’t be pretty.\u00a0 The last time I built a hoop house my neighbor stopped by and smiled.\u00a0 “Oh, did you build an obstacle course for the kids?”\u00a0 I had to concede the long tunnel made of garden stakes, 2X4’s, plastic, old window panes, and bungee cords did resemble an obstacle course.\u00a0 If a mother wanted to test her kids’ agility by having them climb over shattered glass, avoid rusted nails sticking out of wood, and suffocate under a plastic covering.\u00a0 Whatever,\u00a0 moron.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Trust in a higher power.<\/span> This is so often overlooked.\u00a0 As a Type A I can empathize with the desire to grab everything in a steel grip and force it to your bidding.\u00a0 But feel free to turn over some jobs to God, the Universe, or whoever you suspect is\u00a0 pulling the strings on this grand puppet show.\u00a0 When I transplant bushes in July because I forgot to move them in the fall, I like to stomp down the root ball, give them a dose of water, and say “God be with you.”\u00a0 Because they’re too far from the spigot for the soaker hose and that’s the last time I’m hauling the watering can all the way down here.\u00a0 You’d be surprised at how many bushes have survived this treatment.\u00a0 Ditto with the duck who refused to come into the barn at night and was eventually found missing a leg but still paddling on the pond out of reach.\u00a0 I considered a friend’s canoe, a net, and a round of isolation with antibiotics.\u00a0 But I yielded and, instead, tossed her some grain and called “Go with God, friend.”\u00a0 She survived, went on to raise many broods of ducklings, and couldn’t be chased down even with only one good leg.\u00a0 So don’t hesitate to hand over some of the hard ones.\u00a0 Sometimes the Lord has got your back.<\/p>\n

Those are my basic rules for managing the chaos on a farm.\u00a0 With simple prioritizing\u00a0 I manage to get everything done without stress or fuss.\u00a0 Or usually most things.\u00a0 At least half.<\/p>\n

\u00a9<\/span> Stevie Taylor 2010. All Rights Reserved.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you can really do it all.\u00a0 Calm down, men.\u00a0 I am not about to tell you how to multitask.\u00a0 I’ve been married for 10 years.\u00a0 I concede that men cannot multitask.\u00a0 Even if they wanted to (which they don’t).\u00a0\u00a0 I’m talking about prioritizing.\u00a0 A farm may be\u00a0 plagued by disasters, overpopulated, out resourced, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}