We set some big goals for our first five years and were blessed to accomplish them. Learn more about our first 5-year plan in our last blog post here. So now what? What’s next? Great question! We are still formulating the how of the homestead vision, but today I thought we’d share some of the process for how we are determining our next steps.
We finally have the homestead and there’s so much we want to do…but it’s raw land! We want a barn and cows and pigs and gardens and hiking trails in the woods and a greenhouse and, and, and…time and money are finite, so we have to plan and prioritize what we want first. When you want it all, how do you figure out what is your next thing?
What do we want to do?
The first time we had a narrower goal (land and farmhouse) with less moving parts, so we were able to focus on the tasks required easier. But this time, we had to set aside a little bit of time to sit down and write a list of everything we wanted to do, grow/raise, and experience in the next five years. We wrote down about 30 things on a white board and then put them into a google sheet for easier organizing and future reference. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or distracted by so many ideas when they are just swirling around in your mind. Writing it all down either on paper or digitally helps get the bigger picture.
Ranking the rest of our goals
Now that we had a list, we needed to rank what we individually wanted to accomplish and in what order. We each picked our top 5, next 5, and last 5 from the last 5 list. When you limit yourself to just a handful of options from the full list, it really makes you think through what you really want first. We both took some time individually to rank our priorities. Here’s a sample look at how we set up our planning table:
| 5 Year Plan | Top 5 | Next 5 | Last 5 |
| Perimeter Fence | R & N | ||
| First round of steers | R & N | ||
| Breeding chickens | R | N | |
| Establish gardens | R & N | ||
| Finish house upstairs | R&N | ||
| Greenhouse | R & N | ||
| GGFF market fields | N | R | |
| Walk-in cooler | R | N |
Five items we didn’t even make the cut, so they moved to an “ideas for the future” section as they were low priorities for both of us over the next few years. Think of them as “stretch goals.” If we happen to zip through some of our other goals, then we can pull from that list, but if not, no big deal. Those can wait for another season of life.
Figuring out our priorities
We came back together another evening to review where we overlapped (or not), things that cost money or things that just cost time. Could some things happen simultaneously, or need to be done one at a time? Can we compromise on certain items on the list that one of us wants sooner than the other?
Like we mentioned in our previous post, none of our plans are rigid and set in stone. If an opportunity arises for something further down the priority list, we know we can reevaluate and pivot. But having the list just allows us to focus on the next thing in front of us without getting distracted (or discouraged) by how much is left undone in other areas.
Plus, having a clearer idea of what each of us wants to achieve and when makes it simpler to plan our schedules without spreading ourselves too thin over too many projects at once. It also allows us to focus on saving the cash we need for a particular project rather than buying random pieces of various projects and not having enough money to complete any of them.
Classic opportunity cost. Buying stuff for pigs right now (even if it is a good deal!) when they are not in our top 10 things we want to do, would just slow us down from purchasing steers. Or building trails in the woods would rob us of time we need to prep vegetable garden beds that we claim are a higher priority. Having a chart of our priorities helps us keep on task and will ultimately set us up to reach our goals further down the priority list sooner.
In progress
Having just moved in a couple months ago, everything on our list is still a work in progress, but we’re excited for what the future holds. Be sure to sign up for our email list or subscribe on Youtube to follow along on this journey towards building our homestead.