Dairy Business Farm Planning
Stage 2.5: stage2_5 (53KB, Word)
When your work life and personal life are out of balance, your stress level is likely to soar. Achieving a satisfactory work/ life balance can be challenging for self-employed dairy farmers as the boundaries between work and home can become blurred. If you spend most of your life farming, your home life will lose out.
Answer the questions in the worksheet. If you do not answer yes to all questions you may be under pressure and unable to take control of the proposed changes in your plan. You need to reassess what you are currently doing. Talk to your Teagasc Adviser or another professional or bring it up at discussion group to get ideas and support in making the changes necessary.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- How will my daily workload change when my plan is in place?
- Will it mean I will spend more/ less time in the milking parlour?
- Will I spend more time herding and feeding?
- Will I have to employ labour or rely more on a contractor?
- Will I be able to cope with the peak labour demand in the spring?
- Will there be a bigger labour/ contractor bill? How much?
- Can my plan be sustainable from a daily workload perspective?
Another interesting exercise is to complete a ‘Start doing/ Stop doing’ list to identify those tasks which you must spend more time at (‘start doing’) and those which you must spend less or no time at (‘stop doing’) in order to achieve your ambitions. After all, how can you expect different results, if you continue to do the same things?