Staying Organized on the Ranch With Management Minder Tool

By Taylor Grussing

Daily life is busy on the farm and ranch and it seems as if once calving season is done, there is barely time to rest before fields must be planted or hay made. No matter the season, there is usually 2 to 3 different enterprises needing attention and multiple decisions to be made. With so many tasks on the to-do list, staying organized can be difficult. Now available is a tool called Management Minder to assist cow/calf producers in keeping track of yearly production tasks on the farm and ranch.

Management Minder Calendar Program
The Management Minder is a free web-based calendar program that was designed by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Iowa Beef Center and K-State Research and Extension. In the program timely reminders and deadlines can be designed specific to each daily activity on the operation or default calendars can be created based off of suggested dates and default intervals. Annual categories that are available with default calendars include breeding/calving plans, grazing turnout, receiving cattle schedule, weaning schedule and a general activity calendar timely to each season.

Scheduling Activities
Producers can begin by selecting the category desired and associated date, activity to be scheduled, date activity should begin and individual notes about the task can be entered here also. Once the criteria is selected for that category, hit save and a new entry can be started. Subcategories that activities can be schedule for include: health, reproduction, nutrition, pasture, marketing and management.

Using Your Calendar
Once a calendar is complete, producers can send the calendar to print, save on a mobile device or upload to an Outlook, Google or Yahoo calendar. Also, once a ranch/farm is registered, permission can be granted to multiple users to add items to the calendar as well. In addition, calendars can be rolled over from year to year, saving time on set up for next year if daily tasks remain similar. Login information is required for use of this program, and will save inputs from year to year.