4 Ways to be Effective This Winter

My phone rang the other evening, and it startled me because I was just about to call it a night. It had been pitch black for hours, and I thought to myself “who would be calling me at this ungodly hour?” Then I glanced at the clock before answering – it was 7:08 pm. Ungodly hour, indeed. 

In the summer, I’m still hard at it outside at 7 pm, with hours yet to go! I lose all sense of time in the winter. At times I feel like I have barely started the day before I’m racing the sunset to finish what I had planned. So I have been thinking, how can I pack as much into my day with only 8 hours of sunlight as I can with 12 hours in the summer? Or, is that even the right question – maybe it’s “how can I be more efficient with my time now that I have less daylight? Or perhaps I need to be looking for the unique opportunities in this season of “forced rest,” opportunities that are easy to shrug off as distractions when life is busier and the days are longer.

I think fewer daylight hours can challenge us to find creative and different ways to be effective with our time. Winter can be a slower time for a lot of us in ranching, partly due to the lull in the production calendar, partly due to the shorter days. But there are still lots of ways to use that “extra” time this season to be effective in your business. 

1. Read a book (or a few.) Henry Ford once said that “anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” That’s motivation enough for me to pick up a book and learn something new. RMC has a book club in the Ranching for Profit Network accessible to all Ranching for Profit Alumni where we read a book a month on anything from ecology to leadership to business strategy; it’s an opportunity to network with like-minded people and come up with new ideas or challenge old paradigms.
2. Take advantage of the shorter days and look for ways to maximize your efficiency with fewer daylight hours. Working 12 hour days shouldn’t be your badge of honor – rather, it can be the fast track to burnout. Challenge yourself to be more efficient with less time, and spend more hours outside of the business – or at least outside of WITB (Working In The Business). 
3. Rest. I’m a firm believer that taking a step back, taking a breather, and spending time with your family is a great reset and can help revitalize your purpose and your perspective. Sometimes not being able to spend as much time outside with our livestock and in the sunshine can be hard on us but being forced to take a step back can be a really healthy thing. Take the opportunity to reconnect with your “why” in the quieter winter months and regroup for next year. 
4. Continuing education – back to keeping yourself young with new opportunities for learning. Register for a Ranching for Profit School this winter, whether it’s your first one or a refresher. Connect with other ranchers and start the new year with a fresh mindset and new ideas – we would love to have you, and are happy to help you step into 2025 with a new motivation. 

However you choose to allocate your time this winter, I hope you enjoy the holidays with your family and loved ones; Happy Holidays from all of us at RMC!