Have your tools where you need them

Time is our most precious resource. More than money, property, gold — it’s absolutely finite and you cannot create any more

There’s a paradox, though, for farmers like us. If agriculture is a calling for you, to heal the land and your community, the work itself is a primary reason for what you do. Being a part of nature and regeneration. Observing, interacting, and growing in concert with life around you, there’s nothing better.

But, if you’re wasting time on frivolous, unnecessary tasks, if you’re creating more work for yourself, you’re losing precious moments that you could be planting a tree or communing with a flock of chickens.

One of the most annoying time sink for me is when I’m in the middle of a task, and a needed tool is elsewhere. I’m at the farm all set up to get started on a project and I realize I can’t because I last used my drill at home and left it there. Or I’m in the forest garden across the street from the shipping container that has the hatchet I should never leave to do forestry work without.

After this happening enough, I bought another compact drill (one tool that I always need on hand). I overhauled the shipping container so everything is visible, easily accessible, and grouped generally by types of projects — when I start on something I take a moment to look at the shelves or the racks and say, “Oh yea, I need that too.” I bought extra hand tools and built racks for them at three key areas of the farm where we work daily. This has been a work in progress for about two months, and the time-saving and peace-of-mind I’m already enjoying as a result has been profound.