Being more efficient... Is that even possible?

A few weeks back, I wrote about our 2019 Rent The Chicken Owners Conference. Homestead Phil led sessions talking about 2018 in review, troubleshooting rental inquiries, details of a Hatch The Chicken delivery, and "The Long Game". I organized all of the fun ice breakers... you saw that coming, right? :) I led sessions on the steps on behind the scenes in Rent The Chicken to prepare for deliveries, preparing for the media & press releases, and maximizing profitability. Well... Homestead Kate (Rent The Chicken's Top Performer 2016, 2017, and 2018) who serves the Greater Toronto Area brought it home at the conference leading two sessions. The one was titled "Making The Most of Your Time When You Have None".

Making.
The.
Most.
Of.
Your.
Time.
When.
You.
Have.
None.

I'm sure I had this glazed over look when she started talking about this topic (not bundled up tho - it was an inside conference!):

I needed to make the most of time and I felt like I had none!
I applied some principles along with Homestead Phil and we are checking things off of our lists like crazy! AND... my brain doesn't feel clogged with tasks! I'm old school and use a composition notebook. Homestead Phil uses OneNote on his computer.

I'm sure this is in some incredible book somewhere but this is what we are up to:

• 1. At the beginning of each week, we set a timer for 20 minutes and write down EVERY task that needs to be done as far out as 2 months. (How daunting, right?!?) I barely got through what I needed to do in the next two weeks my first time!
• 2. Organize it by category if you want. (Sometimes I do.. sometimes I don't!)
• 3. Mark each one with A B C or D. A for do right away. B for do it soon. C for not urgent but sometime. D for probably someone else should do it. I actually label mine with A B and Phil. haha
• 4. When the next week rolls around, I rewrite my list and then add to it!

It's so incredible how good it feels when I scratch something off of my list that is completed! My brain also feels incredible because it can hold information rather than a million to-do items. I can put some thought into what to make for dinner or I can really think about who The Bee is on The Masked Singer. She is well on her way to being the last one unmasked if you ask me! Unfortunately, I think my big guess that I posted about the other week is incorrect. Tina Turner does not have the number of awards that The Bee said she has on last week's episode. I can also focus on who will live on the next Game of Thrones episode. No spoilers please! We're only on Season 5! I'm not sure I really enjoy watching it. It's pretty graphic. I play a lot of Sudoku on my phone when we watch it. There's a lot of characters to remember. So many of them are older men with beards. It's so hard to tell them apart!

Speaking of... (see how loose my brain is!) Homestead Phil's beard is so intense that I refer to him as "Phil and his beard". Usually he shaves sometime in February when the weather starts to break some but definitely by early March. He made a deal with the Youth Pastor of our church that neither of them would shave until the first day of Spring for a fundraiser. Phil has been helping to lead the Royal Rangers group at our church. It's kinda like Boy Scouts with badges and adventure but also with scripture memorization and a spiritual aspect. So Phil is raising money for the Royal Rangers to go to Camporama in 2020. The Youth Pastor is raising money for Youth Convention. Neither are shaving their whiskers until March 20th! Another month! Here's a photo of the two of us this last weekend. I can't wait to see his face again!

Blog-iversary!

Tomorrow marks one year since starting my blog! Hooray!

I logged 56 entries which is an average of one per week. Technically I met my goal of one per week except that I cranked out 6-8 entries in the first 4 months, barely blogged in the summer, and made a decent come back in the fall into winter. I read a few of my early entries for some retrospect and realized I promised to fill you in on the infamous video of me chasing a chicken. There's two versions but I'll play the sped up edited version set to music! Hold tight though... a few updates first:

• My running career is non-existent. By the time my lungs recovered from six weeks of coughing, the weather was freezing, the roads were snow/ice covered, and I was not motivated. The weather was nicer this week albeit muddy so Homestead Phil and I took a few walks!
• We are still praying for direction as to our family size. We are hyper focused on serving one another and growing our businesses: Rent The Chicken and The Chicken Network. We're always focused on growing our businesses but this time of year requires extra focus and we are not skimping on the focus.
• I've never been one to select a "theme" or a "word of the year" but this year I have one. I'll likely dedicate a blog post to it at some point but here's a sneak peak - 2019 The Year of The Harvest!
• We have a big big big project we've been working on that we will announce on February 17th unless there's a change in our schedule. Stay tuned!

Let's talk about ways to catch a chicken! Have you seen this meme? It cracks me up every time!

Also, in an older Rocky movie as well as in Creed, there are iconic scenes during training where a chicken is being caught to train for speed and agility. You know the scene, right? I'll link to clips below. We've no joke had a swim coach call to arrange for us to bring a few chickens for his team to "train like Rocky". Once the swim team was done chasing chickens around, the Rent The Chicken kid swooped in and picked up the chickens like a boss! haha

Rocky:


Creed:


Are you ready to watch the coveted "How to catch a runaway chicken" video? I'll set the scene: Homestead Phil recorded from his second floor office rather than coming outside to help me. We've remodeled our bulk chicken keeping area since then. The original video has Homestead Phil commentary but this version is set to Benny Hill and sped up. No more spoilers though! I've gotten much better in almost five years!

Without further ado, the never published on my blog video of me chasing a chicken circa Spring 2014:



For those who prefer unedited versions of productions (word use very loosely in this case!) here is the original with Homestead Phil commentary:


Proof that I can catch a chicken or at least hold one? haha:

Mic drop

2019 Rent The Chicken Owners Conference

The main goal of our recent workation to Florida and back was to prepare for our upcoming 2019 Rent The Chicken Owners Conference. We hammered out about 90% of the details while away including an itinerary, detailed schedule, PowerPoint presentations for each session, team building exercises, ice breakers, restaurant for dinner, and more! Pictured to the right was Homestead Phil's make shift work station.

Fast forward nine days after returning home from workation and we were off to Erie, PA for the Owners Conference! We arrived a day before almost everyone else. It was not a religious Conference but we hosted the Conference at the Benedictine Sisters of Erie's Monastery. They have a great meeting space with living room furniture and hotel-like room accommodations PLUS a staff who makes meals for the sisters! So we paid a fee for the room, for the bedrooms, and for the meals. EASY! Well.. until the snow started piling up :) We are thankful that everyone who registered attended and no one got snowed in while at the Conference!

We had 20 attend including Homestead Phil and I! It was our biggest Conference to date! One of our new Affiliates attended and at the end of the Conference said "I had no idea how you guys were going to talk about chickens for 12 hours over the course of two days... but you did it! And kept it interesting!" haha

We discussed 2018 Year in Review followed by presenting our 2018 Top Performer award to Homestead Kate who serves Toronto & South-Central Ontario with Rent The Chicken and Hatch The Chicken.

We awarded Homestead Monica and Randy in Indianapolis with Most Improved as they quadrupled their rentals from 2017 to 2018!

We also honored Homestead Fletcher, Homestead Kate's son, as the youngest attendee and this was his 3rd Conference. Homestead RayLee was honored for her commitment to supplying photos for us to use on social media - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and now Snapchat!

Our vendor partners and organizations provided fantastic giveaways. Some provided enough for everyone to have one and others gave a bigger donation so we raffled those off to all who attended. From there we had sessions on operating individual Rent The Chicken locations, marketing, time management, and accomplishing tasks now with long-term in mind.

And we were introduced to some fun games... Has anyone played Exploding Kittens?? What a hoot!

It's safe to say that we all came away exhausted and overloaded with information but inspired to make 2019 the best year yet!