Time is one of your most valuable resources. Good time management is a major part of business success as it affects labour efficiency, employee's performance and cow's performance. Hence, improving time management skills will result in greater success for your farm.

What is time management?

• Time management is defined as planning and organising your time.

• Being organised means knowing who is responsible for what and knowing when should things happen.

Importance of time management

Time is a valuable resource. Using time effectively translate to a more profitable business, having more leisure time for friends and family. There are several factors that are influenced by time management.

1. Event control

• Event control will affect productivity.

• In turn, it will affect the success and profitability of the farm.

• Event control is influenced by the goals we set, time management skills and havits.

2. Productivity

• Our productivity is correlated to our self-esteem.

• There are ways to increase our productivity such as upgrading facilities to improve efficiency, changing routines or eliminating unnecessary tasks.

3. Self-esteem

• High self-esteem improves our ability to control events and manage time.

• If self-esteem leads to an increased in productivity, then it is important to improve self-esteem as it will have an impact on business.

• One way of improving self-esteem is to communicate with others in a non-judgemental and non-critical manner.

• It is also important to establish in employees a sense of belonging to the business and appreciate their effort.

4. Planning and organising

• Managing your time as well as your employee's requires planning and organising.

• Planning in the broad sense is having a vision for your business while in the narrow sense involves problem identification, decision making and determining long and short term goals.

• Organising in the broad sense involves establishing an employee management structure and designing work areas.

• Organising in a narrow sense refers to taking a plan, a set of short term goals and implementing them, often through employees.

5. Summary

• Time management is important as it improves productivity and self-esteem which in turn influence our desire to manage our time and that of employees.

• Time management involves planing and organising.

• It is encouraged to work on improving event control, productivity and self-esteem.