Viafield Voice
May 2014
Viafield Voice The
10 Tips to Increase Productivity and Manage Your Time w - Page 1
Safety Corner - What A Spring! - BE SAFE!.- Page 2
Kicking Off Learning - Page 3
minutes before you head back to your task list.
10 Tips to Increase Productivity and Manage Your Time These easy tips might be just what you need to get back on track Are you spinning out of control with endless demands on your time and life? Are your stress levels at an all-time high with never ending tasks and deadlines leading to endless working hours and no family time to recharge your batteries? It is time to master productivity skills for the workplace that will empower you for higher performance while enabling good health and a better work life balance through reduced stress and efficient use of office time. Here is how. 1. Think start your day. Spend the first 10 minutes of your work day to figure out what you want to achieve. Think through
pending jobs, pressing problems and urgent deadlines while making notes on your diary or a task list. Rearrange them into a rough check list prioritising the most important tasks on top. The first on the list becomes your primary goal for today - something that will make the day worthwhile. Use the early part of the day to complete stuff that requires greater mental bandwidth and save the afternoon for meetings or repetitive chores. 2. Clock your talk. A large part of a wasted day invariably goes into communication that took too much time and yielded little output. Become aware of when you speak, to whom and for how long. If you are on the phone, stand up to speak and sit down only when the conversation is over. If you are conducting a meeting, set a start and finish deadline. If it is an unscheduled urgent chat with a colleague, box it to 2
3. Birds of a feather. Group similar tasks together and tackle them as a block with a deadline. Read all e-mails in 10-minute slots at one go, but only every 2 hours or more. Similarly make your 20 sales calls in a row. Clubbing similar tasks increases the rate at which you complete them once you settle into a rhythm for that batch. Engage technology to help you out like using labels or folders to automatically bunch together similar emails. Between two diverse sets, take a quick break and walk about to get refreshed and to change gears for the next lot. 4. Take baby steps. Remind yourself every few minutes - is this really the best use of my time? Stop unproductive work and start the next task on the checklist Continued on page 2
R
with a simple action. Or focus on taking a baby step that will get you closer to your goal for the day. Thus you can catch yourself from chatting over Gtalk or the office messenger and refocus on researching information for tomorrow’s meeting instead. 5. Divide and conquer. Often there is a project or target that is simply too big and complicated and keeps getting put off for later. In such cases, divide the project into smaller sub-projects and break those down further into individual actions. From this list figure out what can be done by other people and immediately communicate and delegate the tasks to them. From the rest, pick up the easiest actions and accelerate them to a close. Soon you will pick up momentum and achieve significant progress. 6. Quick to decide, slow to change. On a cumulative basis, the biggest hurdle to productivity is your reluctance to decide early combined with an eagerness to revisit and revise those decisions. Reverse that attitude and commit to taking quick decisions and sticking through with them. Do you need to fix up a meeting for next week? Decide on 3
SAFETY CORNER
What A Spring! Hello All, I just want to say a sincere “THANK YOU” for everyone’s help and attitude while working through the busy and sometimes hectic spring season. I know that we are not done yet, but we have a good portion of it behind us, and we have only had minimal number of incidents/accidents and some near misses that I have heard about.
pm for Wednesday, communicate it, set a reminder and move on. Over time, your quick decisions will be as good if not better than the decisions you put on the back burner. 7. Uni-task. Multi-tasking kills productivity and is as useful to you as Windows 95. The right way to work efficiently is to schedule and prioritise tasks and then tackle them one at a time. With complete focus on that one task, your speed will go up dramatically and you will get a lot more done in any given hour than if you try to speak on the phone while creating the sales chart on Excel. 8. Swallow the bitter pill. Most efficiency experts recommend that you start the day by tackling the most unsavoury task first. Once that is out of the way, a lot of energy is released that helps you zip through the rest of your list. Try and see if that works for you. However some professionals work better by keeping the distasteful task for the last. Avoiding or delaying that task creates an impetus to finish other less unsavoury tasks in an effort to stay productive. Soon the rest of the check list is done and dusted and you have no
Always taking just a few seconds to think about what we are doing, or what we are about to do, can either eliminate or reduce many of our worker’s compensation claims and team member injuries. Recently, we found out just how much working safely benefits both Viafield and our team members. A company’s mod rate, or experience modification rate, is a way for insurance carriers to judge a company’s commitment to safety and its overall management expertise. Since Viafield’s inception, our mod rate for worker’s compensation claims has dramatically decreased. This is something we can all be very proud of. But that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about safety or following the policies and procedures that have helped us to achieve these numbers.
choice but to tackle the last one. Which kind of person are you? 9. How to procrastinate. How do you decide whether a non-critical task should be done immediately or later? If it takes less than 30 seconds do it right away, like responding to an email invitation for a meeting. For a longer non-urgent task, put it on your Google calendar or workplace scheduler as a reminder for the appropriate time. In both cases, the actions enable you to forget about it completely and move on to your next goal for the day. 10. The last thing to do. 15 minutes before the end of day, review what you have done. Would you have performed better if you had done things differently? What would you change? This evaluation exercise will ramp up your efficiency on a daily basis. Finally before you leave, clear your desk of all objects and papers apart from the computer and a notebook and pen if you use one. The next morning will start well when you return to an uncluttered workplace. This article adapted from a piece by writer, Devashish Chakravarty, contributor to The Economic Times.
We can continue to reduce and/or eliminate injuries and accidents by making safety an important part of our everyday activities. By doing this, we make Viafield a place we are all proud to work at. Thanks again and as always… BE SUCCESSFUL BY ALWAYS BEING SAFE!
Kevin Davis
Safety Team Leader
ViafieldVoice 2
Kicking Off Learning
Here are the names of this year’s group and where they will be located:
This year’s summer interns go through orientation A summer internship can be the most valuable experience in a young persons life. It gives them insight into their potential field of employment, as well as real-world experience that can be used after they graduate. Viafield is fortunate to have a terrific group of summer interns again this year. On May 14, they all came together at the central office in Charles City for orientation. During the day long session, the interns learned more about the company, what is expected of them, and how they can be safe in their day-to-day projects.
Schae Greenzweig - Charles City Adam Buseman - Charles City Ashley Bushman - Elgin Jennifer Huhe - Elgin Logan Davis - Randalia Adam Schaufenbuel - Randalia Tony Berry - Arlington Nick Boehm - Arlington Logan Butler - Northwood Mitchell Moretz - Northwood Adam Murray - Marble Rock Geordan Hanson - Clermont
Taking The Next Step A number of Team Members, their children and their grandchildren are graduating from high school and college this month. Making the transition from high school to college and from college to the working world is a big step, for both students and parents. We want to wish both the graduates and their parents our very best in this time of transition. Congratulations Class of 2014!
Rick Davis’ daughter, Joelle Davis. University of Northern Iowa
Brian Dirksen’s stepdaughter, Tess Hanson. Mason City High School
Darren Petersen’s daughter, Nicole Petersen. St. Ansgar High School
Regina Hoffman, Agronomist and Geoff Seidel, Applicator from Clermont. Upper Iowa University
Caileye Koch, working from Clermont. Hawkeye Community College
Gary Benson’s granddaughter, Kaitlyn Benson. Manteo High School, NC
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Regina Hoffman - Agronomy Account Relationship Manager - Maynard It is our pleasure to introduce Regina Hoffman, our newest Agronomy Account Relationship Manager, based out of the Maynard facility. Regina is a familiar team member, as she partnered with our Clermont location last summer as an Agronomy Intern. Regina also played an important part in an unmanned flying demonstration at one of our Viafield Answer Plots last year. She recently graduated from Upper Iowa University with a degree in Agricultural Business and Environmental Science. Agriculture is part of Regina’s foundation with her heavy involvement in Buchanan County ISU Extension and 4‐H program, Fayette County Natural Resource Conservation Service, and her previous planting/harvest seasons assisting Consolidated Grain and Barge in a Customer Service and Grain Operations role. Regina’s dedication to our industry and communities can be seen through her time working with our youth in agriculture, her participation in leadership and academic organizations at Upper Iowa, as well as a trip overseas to Haiti helping many impacted by the 2010 earthquake. Please join us in welcoming Regina back to our Viafield team as a Full‐time Team Member on Monday June 2!
Courtney Bartz - Agronomy Account Relationship Manager - Northwood It is our pleasure to introduce Courtney Bartz, our newest Agronomy Account Relationship Manager, based out of the Northwood facility. Courtney is a familiar team member, as she has spent two Agronomy internship assignments with Viafield in crop scouting and sales. She recently graduated from Iowa State, on May 10, with a degree in Agricultural Business emphasizing Agronomy and Agricultural Systems Technology. Agriculture is part of Courtney’s foundation, as she grew up on a 1,100 acre diversified family farm specializing in row crop production. Courtney’s dedication to our industry can be seen through her many years in FFA, the ISU Agricultural Business Club, and various community involvement activities. Please join us in welcoming Courtney back to our Viafield team as a Full-time Team Member!
The Viafield Family Keeps Growing Mike Harden and his wife, Rosalie, are grandparents again blessed with a new grand-daughter last week. Colbie Elizabeth, 6 lbs 9 oz, born to their youngest daughter, Jamie and husband Mike Newel. Colbie joins her older sister Tatum, born this past October. Congratulations to the Harden family! ViafieldVoice 4
HAPPY BIRTHDA Y! A number of Team Members will be celebrating their birthdays in June. Here’s your reminder to send them best wishes on their special day. Jerry Yauslin June 4 Mike Kubouskek June 5 John Schupbach June 10 Lyle Chambers June 12 Lori Miller June 13 Gary Benson June 13 Pete Keune June 15 Mason Kleitsch June 16 Mark Wegner June 16 Dean Ehler June 16 Mike Katcher June 21 Taylor Greenwood June 22 Steve Bodensteiner June 24 Mike Helgerson June 25 Ryan Smith June 26 Darlene Wilkes June 26 Jared Haverkamp June 27 Dan Miller June 30 Matt Shoars June 30 Randy Evans June 30
CareerOpportunities “Check out our career section of the website...we want our team members to continue developing as Viafield grows opportunities!” Current Full-Time Openings: • • • • • •
Applicator - Randalia Applicator - Arlington Grain Operations - London Location Team Leader - Clermont Shop Mechanic - Arlington Valley C-store Operator - Clermont
UpcomingEvents June 4, 2014 - Cultivating Excellence 2.0 - Charles City - 10:00-3:00 June 5, 2014 - Cultivating Excellence 1.0 - Holiday Inn Express, Mason City - 8:30-4:30 June 10, 2014 - Safety Meeting - Charles City - 9:30 June 13, 2014 - Ssales Onboarding - Charles City - 11:00-12:00 June 18, 2014 - June Dairy Month Free Ice Cream Day
Stay in touch with your cooperative through our social media outlets. Copyright © 2014 Viafield, a cooperative. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the express written permission of Viafield is prohibited.
ViafieldVoice 5
Viafield Voice The
10 Tips to Increase Productivity and Manage Your Time w - Page 1
Safety Corner - What A Spring! - BE SAFE!.- Page 2
Kicking Off Learning - Page 3
minutes before you head back to your task list.
10 Tips to Increase Productivity and Manage Your Time These easy tips might be just what you need to get back on track Are you spinning out of control with endless demands on your time and life? Are your stress levels at an all-time high with never ending tasks and deadlines leading to endless working hours and no family time to recharge your batteries? It is time to master productivity skills for the workplace that will empower you for higher performance while enabling good health and a better work life balance through reduced stress and efficient use of office time. Here is how. 1. Think start your day. Spend the first 10 minutes of your work day to figure out what you want to achieve. Think through
pending jobs, pressing problems and urgent deadlines while making notes on your diary or a task list. Rearrange them into a rough check list prioritising the most important tasks on top. The first on the list becomes your primary goal for today - something that will make the day worthwhile. Use the early part of the day to complete stuff that requires greater mental bandwidth and save the afternoon for meetings or repetitive chores. 2. Clock your talk. A large part of a wasted day invariably goes into communication that took too much time and yielded little output. Become aware of when you speak, to whom and for how long. If you are on the phone, stand up to speak and sit down only when the conversation is over. If you are conducting a meeting, set a start and finish deadline. If it is an unscheduled urgent chat with a colleague, box it to 2
3. Birds of a feather. Group similar tasks together and tackle them as a block with a deadline. Read all e-mails in 10-minute slots at one go, but only every 2 hours or more. Similarly make your 20 sales calls in a row. Clubbing similar tasks increases the rate at which you complete them once you settle into a rhythm for that batch. Engage technology to help you out like using labels or folders to automatically bunch together similar emails. Between two diverse sets, take a quick break and walk about to get refreshed and to change gears for the next lot. 4. Take baby steps. Remind yourself every few minutes - is this really the best use of my time? Stop unproductive work and start the next task on the checklist Continued on page 2
R
with a simple action. Or focus on taking a baby step that will get you closer to your goal for the day. Thus you can catch yourself from chatting over Gtalk or the office messenger and refocus on researching information for tomorrow’s meeting instead. 5. Divide and conquer. Often there is a project or target that is simply too big and complicated and keeps getting put off for later. In such cases, divide the project into smaller sub-projects and break those down further into individual actions. From this list figure out what can be done by other people and immediately communicate and delegate the tasks to them. From the rest, pick up the easiest actions and accelerate them to a close. Soon you will pick up momentum and achieve significant progress. 6. Quick to decide, slow to change. On a cumulative basis, the biggest hurdle to productivity is your reluctance to decide early combined with an eagerness to revisit and revise those decisions. Reverse that attitude and commit to taking quick decisions and sticking through with them. Do you need to fix up a meeting for next week? Decide on 3
SAFETY CORNER
What A Spring! Hello All, I just want to say a sincere “THANK YOU” for everyone’s help and attitude while working through the busy and sometimes hectic spring season. I know that we are not done yet, but we have a good portion of it behind us, and we have only had minimal number of incidents/accidents and some near misses that I have heard about.
pm for Wednesday, communicate it, set a reminder and move on. Over time, your quick decisions will be as good if not better than the decisions you put on the back burner. 7. Uni-task. Multi-tasking kills productivity and is as useful to you as Windows 95. The right way to work efficiently is to schedule and prioritise tasks and then tackle them one at a time. With complete focus on that one task, your speed will go up dramatically and you will get a lot more done in any given hour than if you try to speak on the phone while creating the sales chart on Excel. 8. Swallow the bitter pill. Most efficiency experts recommend that you start the day by tackling the most unsavoury task first. Once that is out of the way, a lot of energy is released that helps you zip through the rest of your list. Try and see if that works for you. However some professionals work better by keeping the distasteful task for the last. Avoiding or delaying that task creates an impetus to finish other less unsavoury tasks in an effort to stay productive. Soon the rest of the check list is done and dusted and you have no
Always taking just a few seconds to think about what we are doing, or what we are about to do, can either eliminate or reduce many of our worker’s compensation claims and team member injuries. Recently, we found out just how much working safely benefits both Viafield and our team members. A company’s mod rate, or experience modification rate, is a way for insurance carriers to judge a company’s commitment to safety and its overall management expertise. Since Viafield’s inception, our mod rate for worker’s compensation claims has dramatically decreased. This is something we can all be very proud of. But that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about safety or following the policies and procedures that have helped us to achieve these numbers.
choice but to tackle the last one. Which kind of person are you? 9. How to procrastinate. How do you decide whether a non-critical task should be done immediately or later? If it takes less than 30 seconds do it right away, like responding to an email invitation for a meeting. For a longer non-urgent task, put it on your Google calendar or workplace scheduler as a reminder for the appropriate time. In both cases, the actions enable you to forget about it completely and move on to your next goal for the day. 10. The last thing to do. 15 minutes before the end of day, review what you have done. Would you have performed better if you had done things differently? What would you change? This evaluation exercise will ramp up your efficiency on a daily basis. Finally before you leave, clear your desk of all objects and papers apart from the computer and a notebook and pen if you use one. The next morning will start well when you return to an uncluttered workplace. This article adapted from a piece by writer, Devashish Chakravarty, contributor to The Economic Times.
We can continue to reduce and/or eliminate injuries and accidents by making safety an important part of our everyday activities. By doing this, we make Viafield a place we are all proud to work at. Thanks again and as always… BE SUCCESSFUL BY ALWAYS BEING SAFE!
Kevin Davis
Safety Team Leader
ViafieldVoice 2
Kicking Off Learning
Here are the names of this year’s group and where they will be located:
This year’s summer interns go through orientation A summer internship can be the most valuable experience in a young persons life. It gives them insight into their potential field of employment, as well as real-world experience that can be used after they graduate. Viafield is fortunate to have a terrific group of summer interns again this year. On May 14, they all came together at the central office in Charles City for orientation. During the day long session, the interns learned more about the company, what is expected of them, and how they can be safe in their day-to-day projects.
Schae Greenzweig - Charles City Adam Buseman - Charles City Ashley Bushman - Elgin Jennifer Huhe - Elgin Logan Davis - Randalia Adam Schaufenbuel - Randalia Tony Berry - Arlington Nick Boehm - Arlington Logan Butler - Northwood Mitchell Moretz - Northwood Adam Murray - Marble Rock Geordan Hanson - Clermont
Taking The Next Step A number of Team Members, their children and their grandchildren are graduating from high school and college this month. Making the transition from high school to college and from college to the working world is a big step, for both students and parents. We want to wish both the graduates and their parents our very best in this time of transition. Congratulations Class of 2014!
Rick Davis’ daughter, Joelle Davis. University of Northern Iowa
Brian Dirksen’s stepdaughter, Tess Hanson. Mason City High School
Darren Petersen’s daughter, Nicole Petersen. St. Ansgar High School
Regina Hoffman, Agronomist and Geoff Seidel, Applicator from Clermont. Upper Iowa University
Caileye Koch, working from Clermont. Hawkeye Community College
Gary Benson’s granddaughter, Kaitlyn Benson. Manteo High School, NC
ViafieldVoice 3
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Regina Hoffman - Agronomy Account Relationship Manager - Maynard It is our pleasure to introduce Regina Hoffman, our newest Agronomy Account Relationship Manager, based out of the Maynard facility. Regina is a familiar team member, as she partnered with our Clermont location last summer as an Agronomy Intern. Regina also played an important part in an unmanned flying demonstration at one of our Viafield Answer Plots last year. She recently graduated from Upper Iowa University with a degree in Agricultural Business and Environmental Science. Agriculture is part of Regina’s foundation with her heavy involvement in Buchanan County ISU Extension and 4‐H program, Fayette County Natural Resource Conservation Service, and her previous planting/harvest seasons assisting Consolidated Grain and Barge in a Customer Service and Grain Operations role. Regina’s dedication to our industry and communities can be seen through her time working with our youth in agriculture, her participation in leadership and academic organizations at Upper Iowa, as well as a trip overseas to Haiti helping many impacted by the 2010 earthquake. Please join us in welcoming Regina back to our Viafield team as a Full‐time Team Member on Monday June 2!
Courtney Bartz - Agronomy Account Relationship Manager - Northwood It is our pleasure to introduce Courtney Bartz, our newest Agronomy Account Relationship Manager, based out of the Northwood facility. Courtney is a familiar team member, as she has spent two Agronomy internship assignments with Viafield in crop scouting and sales. She recently graduated from Iowa State, on May 10, with a degree in Agricultural Business emphasizing Agronomy and Agricultural Systems Technology. Agriculture is part of Courtney’s foundation, as she grew up on a 1,100 acre diversified family farm specializing in row crop production. Courtney’s dedication to our industry can be seen through her many years in FFA, the ISU Agricultural Business Club, and various community involvement activities. Please join us in welcoming Courtney back to our Viafield team as a Full-time Team Member!
The Viafield Family Keeps Growing Mike Harden and his wife, Rosalie, are grandparents again blessed with a new grand-daughter last week. Colbie Elizabeth, 6 lbs 9 oz, born to their youngest daughter, Jamie and husband Mike Newel. Colbie joins her older sister Tatum, born this past October. Congratulations to the Harden family! ViafieldVoice 4
HAPPY BIRTHDA Y! A number of Team Members will be celebrating their birthdays in June. Here’s your reminder to send them best wishes on their special day. Jerry Yauslin June 4 Mike Kubouskek June 5 John Schupbach June 10 Lyle Chambers June 12 Lori Miller June 13 Gary Benson June 13 Pete Keune June 15 Mason Kleitsch June 16 Mark Wegner June 16 Dean Ehler June 16 Mike Katcher June 21 Taylor Greenwood June 22 Steve Bodensteiner June 24 Mike Helgerson June 25 Ryan Smith June 26 Darlene Wilkes June 26 Jared Haverkamp June 27 Dan Miller June 30 Matt Shoars June 30 Randy Evans June 30
CareerOpportunities “Check out our career section of the website...we want our team members to continue developing as Viafield grows opportunities!” Current Full-Time Openings: • • • • • •
Applicator - Randalia Applicator - Arlington Grain Operations - London Location Team Leader - Clermont Shop Mechanic - Arlington Valley C-store Operator - Clermont
UpcomingEvents June 4, 2014 - Cultivating Excellence 2.0 - Charles City - 10:00-3:00 June 5, 2014 - Cultivating Excellence 1.0 - Holiday Inn Express, Mason City - 8:30-4:30 June 10, 2014 - Safety Meeting - Charles City - 9:30 June 13, 2014 - Ssales Onboarding - Charles City - 11:00-12:00 June 18, 2014 - June Dairy Month Free Ice Cream Day
Stay in touch with your cooperative through our social media outlets. Copyright © 2014 Viafield, a cooperative. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the express written permission of Viafield is prohibited.
ViafieldVoice 5
