Jenny (00:28)
A few weeks ago on one of my coaching calls with one of my farmers, she told me she was going into this season as frazzled as ever, as chaotic as ever, super overwhelmed. The to-do list was just running on and on and on. And it was so overwhelming that she was like almost paralyzed. And I see this all the time with flower farmers. I used to be one of these flower farmers way back in the day where you're just kind of running from task to task, you always feel behind.
Jenny (00:57)
Everything feels reactive. You're just putting out fires. You never feel like you're caught up. And I think a lot of this stems from not having a system in place for actually planning out your week. So in today's episode, I'm gonna be sharing my time management system that I've been using for years and I still use to this day, has helped eliminate a lot of these feelings of overwhelm and just basically feeling frazzled all the time.
Jenny (01:26)
And I'm sure if you use it, it will help you too. in case we haven't met before, my name is Jenny Marks. I own a multiple six-figure small-scale flower farm where I grow flowers on less than an acre. I usually earn between a 40 and 50% profit margin on that flower farm. And I have been farming for literally my entire life. I've been operating this current flower farm business I have now for 11 years, and I now help other flower farmers.
Jenny (01:53)
skip a lot of mistakes that I made and help them get to a profitable and more manageable business faster. So that is why I run this podcast. That's why I run my business programs to flower farmers so I can help other people get to where they want to be faster. But back to the problem here of overwhelm. I think that overwhelm is obviously caused by having a lot to do, but a big piece of it
Jenny (02:20)
Is caused by having way too many competing priorities and things we put on our own plates. And I think that chaos happens when everything feels equally important because then you don't know where to start, everything feels urgent, nothing gets finished. And so it kind of comes back to learning how to prioritize on our flower farms. Because the reality is every week you have pretty much most of the season, you have things to seed.
Jenny (02:47)
You have things to transplant. You have things to weed. You have things to harvest. You have bouquets to make, bunches to put together, orders to get out the door, deliveries to make. You have sales and marketing tasks. You got to send out email newsletters. You have to post on social media or do your cold outreach or whatever you do for your marketing and sales. Plus, you have customer service. Sometimes you have to do
Jenny (03:10)
whatever with customer service, like dealing with customer communication or addressing issues or frustrations. There's also family obligations on top of that. If you have kids or spouses or even not, even if you just have like a dog that gets sick one day, there's always things on top of that.
Jenny (03:28)
Plus, there's always things that go wrong. There's thrips that pop up in your high tunnel, or Japanese beetles suddenly appear, or aphids are starting to colonize in your salosha. Like there's always fires that come up that have to be put out. And this is why flower farming can sometimes feel really chaotic and crazy. And you may have heard me say this before, but I say all the time that flower farming is like death by a thousand paper cuts.
Jenny (03:57)
It's this beautiful thing that we love doing. But then when there's all these little tiny tasks and there's thousands of them that add up, it's all of those little tiny things that add up and really contribute to our stress levels. So the problem here is that there isn't always something to do. Of course, there's always gonna be something to do. The problem is that there will always be something to do.
Jenny (04:24)
And that is an important mindset shift. The goal isn't to finish everything. The goal isn't to do every single thing on your to-do list. The goal is to one, find the right things to accomplish that will actually move your business forward and to finish those right things.
Jenny (04:40)
Because most people operate in this chaos where something feels urgent, they do it. Something else feels urgent, they go do that. Something else catches fire, then they do that. And so the farm is constantly running your week instead of you running the farm. So
Jenny (04:57)
The process I use to kind of overcome this, all these things constantly grabbing at my attention, is that I have a whole process that there's different names for this process, and there's lots of different versions out there in the world, but I refer to this as Monday hour one, or sometimes the Sunday planner task or Friday finisher, whatever name you want to give to it. I've heard lots of people have all kinds of names for this, but.
Jenny (05:25)
Usually I call it Monday hour one because the very first thing I do on Monday mornings is I sit down at my desk and I run through this process of going through all the things that need to happen this week and prioritizing them by what actually matters for the business and then scheduling them to happen throughout the week. So here's what that looks like step by step. Step number one is just doing a brain dump. So getting everything out, literally everything. I'm writing down every single task that needs to be done.
Jenny (05:54)
Personal farm, what I need to do for my customers, you know, like book bucket pickups or wedding pickups, what my team needs to do, equipment that needs maintenance, planting, anything from our cop crop plan, like it all gets written down. and actually we use a task management software. We use one called Asana. There's a bunch of them out there, but We use that digital version of our tax management software, but
Jenny (06:16)
All that is is a fancy term for a giant to-do list. So just write everything down. And before I do this, I spend some time literally just walking around the farm because when I do that, I notice things that need to be done. Like I walked around the farm this week and I noticed that there was an area of the top of one of our beds that missed getting, they didn't get weeded last week. So the weeds were coming up there. I saw that there was weeds coming up in our new planting of eucalyptus.
Jenny (06:46)
I saw that there was dahlia's and Silosha that was getting tall and was ready to be pinched. And like when I'm just sitting down at my desk, those aren't things that I'm thinking about. And so I really like to walk around the farm and write down all the things I see are going to be need to be done this week. And of course, pulling stuff from our crop plan as well.
Jenny (07:06)
This brain dump is extremely valuable just to get everything out on paper or in a digital disc because your brain is for thinking, not remembering things. Like that's a huge concept that I have needed to adopt as a business owner. I'm running multiple businesses now and have a family, a household I have to manage and kids and all that kind of stuff. So think of this: your brain is for thinking, not remembering. So that's the reason for this. You don't want to.
Jenny (07:35)
try to carry all of that mentally. So getting it out your head. Step number two is categorizing tasks. Now this is where it gets really valuable is that we're now going to categorize categorize, if I could talk, tasks by priority. So the first category I put things into is mission critical tasks. So these are things that directly impact revenue, profit, or customers.
Jenny (08:03)
So examples of this would be sending out our weekly availability email to Floris, sending out our weekly email newsletter, doing Floris outreach, making sure our CSA happens and those deliveries go out, making sure that our farmer's market prep happens and we go to the farmer's market. Obviously, there are routines that you have in your week with your sales outlets that will always be there on your schedule. sales calls, anything like that. So these are all mission critical tasks.
Jenny (08:32)
That have to happen in order for revenue, profit, or customers to be happy. If one of these tasks disappeared, revenue would suffer. And so that's why it goes into this first category of mission critical. Now, these are the things that we are going to schedule on our calendar, our schedule for the week first, but we'll come back to that in a second. Then the second category is category number two is mission supporting. So looking at our giant to-do list.
Jenny (09:01)
I'm looking at what tasks maybe don't directly produce revenue, but they will help support revenue in the future. So examples of this are seeding and transplanting, because without the flowers, we can't sell them to make money, right? there's other things like inventory updates or
Jenny (09:24)
SOP creation, if it is something I'm delegating to somebody else that involves revenue creation. So for example, I have been over the years delegating a lot of marketing and sales tasks to some of my team members, you know, at least pieces of it. And so creating systems or SOP standard operating procedures for them to follow, for me, would be considered a mission supporting.
Jenny (09:52)
Task. And of course, this all revolves around your goals as well.
Jenny (09:56)
Now let's move on to our third and final category to categorize all these tasks into, and that is category three, non-mission critical tasks. Now, these are things that may feel really urgent, but tend to not actually make a difference in the business. These things will be one.
Jenny (10:19)
Replacing a faucet. There is a faucet in our bathroom of our barn that has been not working correctly for probably almost a year at this point. And it is so it is just non-mission critical. Like it's still functional, it still works. People can still wash their hands. It's just not ideal. And I'm not proud to admit it, but like this hasn't been fixed for almost a year. And it's because it is not critical.
Jenny (10:45)
To the mission of the farm. And so it just has always stayed at the bottom of the to-do list. Another one is this project we have of putting roll up sides on one of our caterpillar tunnels. We have this one, our very first caterpillar tunnel that we put up. It's been here for like literally 10 years. We bought it used when we replaced the plastic on it a few years ago. There actually, there's this whole backstory to it. I don't even know if it's worth telling you guys, but
Jenny (11:11)
Basically, we couldn't get the right size plastic because there was like some shortages. So we had to buy a bigger one. So now every time it rains, it gets filled with water and like pulls the curtains closed. So this is something that we have to fix. We either fix it by cutting the plastic, replacing it with new plastic, or putting roll-up sides on it. And again, it is very functional. It works just fine. It's just kind of annoying. Yes, does it take a few extra minutes for us to have to like push up the sides after it rains? And does that
Jenny (11:41)
Maybe affect revenue in the long term because that's wasted time. Sure, I guess. However, the fact of the matter is that it's just not going to impact our revenue that much. And so that's why it's f falling to the bottom of that task list. another example is if like a fan is broken. So this comes down to a lot of like fixing things that are broken or
Jenny (12:05)
You know, general maintenance tasks, these are things that we tend to prioritize more over the winter time. So just because something feels like it's important doesn't mean that it's important right now. Okay. Now there are definitely some gray areas here. And this is your job as a business owner is to make sure that you are making decisions in a way that aligns with what's actually important for the business or not. So I'll give you an example.
Jenny (12:34)
If you had, like, actually, I'll give you an example from my farm. We recently had an outbreak of aphids in our salosha. Aphids are our number one pest problem. We're always dealing with it, always scouting for it. but this one was a little bit unexpected because we don't typically get aphids in the summertime in our salosha. Now, this may impact revenue because it is going to harm our
Jenny (13:04)
plants. It's going to make it so if we have an outbreak, those Silosha stems are not going to be harvestable.
Jenny (13:10)
Now, for some people, they would be like, okay, this is like a fire that comes up out of nowhere. This is one of those like urgent tasks. And for me, I would rate this as a mission supporting like category two. Like, this has to happen. We need to take care of this problem in order for revenue to not be affected. But does it have to happen right now today?
Jenny (13:37)
For aphids, yes, usually in the first couple days, but for other pests, it's sometimes no. Like for Japanese beetles, like we can probably wait. For thrips, like I can probably wait. It really depends on the situation, on the pest, on the crop, like the importance of that crop. There's all these other factors that go into it. And that's where you come in as the business owners you have to make judgment calls about what is actually mission critical.
Jenny (14:05)
Right now, today, and what is not. And so there are always going to be fires like this that pop up in the business that we need to be prepared about. Now, the hard truth about priorities here is that this process, that these first two steps in the process are forcing you to prioritize on your flower farm. Because if everything is a priority, is anything a priority?
Jenny (14:31)
You know, a priority list with 50 items on it isn't a priority list. It's just a to-do list. And so this exercise will force you to get clear on what activities you do on your farm are actually revenue generating and which ones are not, and to prioritize the things that are. Now, the third and final step of this process, and like I said, I sit down every single Monday morning and do this. And sometimes I do it on Sunday nights, sometimes I do it on Friday evenings, but for the week ahead.
Jenny (14:59)
I'd always sit down and do this.
Jenny (15:01)
But step number three is to actually sit down and schedule in your priorities. So this is not just like, yeah, I'm gonna do this to this week. I'm gonna make sure I get through all the mission critical tasks. No, we are actually scheduling them on the calendar. And this is where most people fail. If it isn't scheduled, for me, it's not real, it's just a wish.
Jenny (15:27)
So I go through all of our mission critical tasks and I estimate how much time is this actually going to take. So for example, you know, harvesting on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I know about how long that's going to take because we do it every single week. And every, you know, I've been doing this for a while. So I have a pretty good sense of how long things are gonna take based on the season, based on what we're harvesting. things like
Jenny (15:55)
transplanting and seeding and you know deliveries, these are all things that over time you will get better at estimating how long that will actually take. So if there's like a transplanting task, for example, and I know it's going to take three hours, I will put it in a three-hour time slot on our calendar like Thursday from 7 to 10 a.m. So every single task in the calendar is actually scheduled on our
Jenny (16:22)
Calendar. You can put it in a Google calendar if you want. You can put it in a planner. You can put it on a whiteboard. Whatever works for you. The important thing is just to schedule it.
Jenny (16:32)
Okay, so quick recap before we get to the last couple of points I want to make about this system. just to recap. First, you make a giant to-do list, braindump of everything. Second step is you categorize all those tasks by mission critical, mission supporting, non-mission critical. So basically prioritizing them and then scheduling them on your calendar. Each task gets assigned a block on your calendar, a specific time frame.
Jenny (17:02)
Now, the important piece of this is that you have to leave room for things that naturally come up every week. You have to have some white space, open space on your calendar. A lot of people, the the biggest mistake I see when people do a system like this is that they try to schedule a hundred percent of their week. And that to me is a huge mistake because your week will not go according to plan. The tractor will break.
Jenny (17:31)
It's gonna rain. A customer is gonna email you wanting something different. A kid is gonna get sick. You know, pests are gonna pop up. You have to leave room in your schedule. Good planning isn't creating the perfect week. It's creating enough flexibility to survive imperfect ones. So of course, you want to roughly schedule in
Jenny (17:54)
All of these tasks that you're gonna do, but you also want to make sure you leave buffer for things to happen. And I don't mean just like a few hours. A lot of times on my calendar now, I leave a whole half a day open for things that just come up or things that I forgot about or whatever needs to happen. And then I'll just fill that space with whatever else I have going on, or I'll get ahead of schedule if it doesn't actually get filled. Now that took me a while to work up to.
Jenny (18:22)
In the beginning, I hardly ever had any white space on my schedule every week. But after years of delegating and getting better at managing, I've worked my way up to that. So I have a lot more flexibility in my weekly schedule.
Jenny (18:37)
And now if you have a team, do this for them. Help them learn how to do this. If you have, you know, a team you've had for a while or team members that have been with you for a length of time, show them the plan. Put it on a whiteboard, put it in a task management software, even if it's just a task list for them, kind of organized by day, whatever, do this so when your employees come to work.
Jenny (19:03)
And you're not available at every single second, they can just look at the whiteboard or look at the task management software and see, okay, you know, I finished with this task a little bit earlier than I expected. I can just move on to going to the next task instead of coming looking for you, wondering what to do and how to do it. Now we also have a meeting every Monday to go over the tasks for the week, the plan for the week, ask if anybody has questions, go over, you know, how to actually do some of these things.
Jenny (19:31)
train people on how to do things and then ask if anybody needs clarification. And that helps my week run a lot more smoothly. And my team members really appreciate it because they feel empowered knowing what the plan is so they can just help execute it. That's how you get good buy-in from your team members and how you help them make outcomes happen for your flower farm. Now this works for a lot of different people in a lot of different places.
Jenny (19:59)
The benefit here isn't organization. Like I know this to some people, this may sound like kind of crazy to do, but I promise you, this is what high achievers do. The benefit of this is focus. It's not just getting organized, it's being focused on what is most important and what do I have time for this week. And truly, like when you start putting in boundaries, obviously in the beginning, when you're first getting your flower farm going.
Jenny (20:24)
You're gonna work long hours. You're going to work a lot more than you probably want to. But at some point, you know, after a few years, there has to be boundaries in place. Like one of the best things I did for myself is that at some point I was like, I'm gonna work from seven to four and I'm not gonna work after that. And if I have to work in the evenings to take care of IPM or like integrated pest management, pests and disease stuff, because usually I do that in the evenings, then I'll take off a few hours earlier in the day. Like these are my boundaries. And
Jenny (20:54)
Whatever doesn't fit into this must not be that important. And that's how I operated my business. And that's a big reason why I got a lot of my time back and stopped feeling so stressed and overwhelmed all the time.
Jenny (21:05)
The goal here isn't to check off more boxes. It's really just to move your business forward and do it within a system and confines that allow you to truly prioritize what's important and leave behind what's not. So, my challenge for you is this week before next Monday, set aside half an hour, maybe 20 minutes, braindump everything, categorize those tasks.
Jenny (21:31)
Schedule the mission critical tasks first, then those other ones, the mission supporting, and finally, if you have time, the non-mission critical tasks. And then ask yourself, what if the next week felt intentional instead of reactive? And I bet you would feel a lot more better about your business and where you are at one right now.
Jenny (21:55)
And I'm gonna end this just by saying most flower farmers think that they need more time, but the reality is a lot of them need more clarity around what's really important and what to prioritize. Because when you know what matters most, a lot of this overwhelm, you know, give yourself permission to just let some things go and that overwhelm can kind of disappear. So if you are feeling overwhelmed in your flower farm right now, I truly hope that this can help you this week.
Jenny (22:23)
Feel a little bit calmer, feel a little bit more organized. Like I said, I have been religiously running this system every single week of my life for years and years and years. And it has only gotten easier to do and it has only gotten better And just overall has improved my life. Thanks again for being here for another episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast. If this
Jenny (22:45)
tactical systems, this kind of information was useful or helpful to you. I would love it if you could leave a review. It takes 30 seconds. Head over to Apple. We have thousands and thousands of listeners every single week. So I know a lot of you guys listen to me week after week after week. And so if you could just go leave a review to give me some feedback on this this episode, that would be so, so appreciated. I would love it if you did that. don't forget we publish new episodes every Monday.
Jenny (23:14)
So I'll see ya next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
