Triage Part II

So how did it go?

In the last post I outlined a way to triage my day from the things I want to get done and what absolutely had to be done. And planning and talking about it is great, but how did it actual work? Some days I knock it out of the park and other days, nothing goes right. I think the skill of triaging is worth it's wait in gold. But the follow up to that is "follow through". So let's dive in.

I had 3 lists. Things I had to get done (because they were appointments with other people or activities), things I wanted to get done, and absolute time sucks that I routinely fall prey to.

Although the "have to" were supposed to be a given that they got done. Life throws you curve balls and often they just don't get done. I also mentioned that I had pretty low faith in people being on time. That turned out to be true as well. But of this list: daughters recital, recieve couch in storage unit, irrigate with free water, help mother-in-law with lawn stuff, and microgreen maintenance. I got all of them done except the couch in storage because they called to confirm if I could do an earlier time, which I couldn't. So they rescheduled for Monday. Then on monday they were about 30 minutes late, and the irrigation moved up more than a full day, so I had to do that at 3:40 am on Monday morning before the couch delivery.

Now, the want list was a lot bigger but some things happened that moved those around. Due to the irrigation and couch delivery fiasco, I had some more time, but a window opened up that wasn't on the schedule at all to get some hay and have a discounted dinner at our favorite resturant that is reservation only. So admittedly I took that option which did kill a few others because of the rarity of that occurance. But the most important thing listed was "list the dog house for sale". That got done and that's the key. Do the things that either guarantee or increase your chances of putting cash into your pocket. Especially passive things like listing items for sale that you don't have to be physically working at all day.

I also got the money order for the charitable contribution but then realized when I got home that I couldn't change the date and that was the key to the contribution in the first place so although I did it, I had to remedy that on Monday. Next up was move items from house out to new storage container, that got done because we had to feed animals there anyway. Doing more job applications and searches for a better full time role got done, but nothing really huge happened. Now the three things that didn't get done were: Continue finishing React Native projects for online portfolio, move empty goat pen from one location over to our farm, and finish phase 1 of our home plans so we can move to phase 2 and line up professional house planners. All in all the most important things got done, but these could be allowed to fall through the cracks a bit. Mainly, did anything that I could control remove money from my pocket of put money back in? Well the hay was something that took money out, however, it was better hay at a lower price than I previously had, so it was still a net positive, because it's a necessity either way.

Keep in mind, this was just a single day that was pretty stacked with "have to's" so getting anything else done was really kind of a plus. I would definitely chalk the day up to a win. It's a small example of triage on simply planning the day. But doing this consistently will land you with opportunities for really big things. The guy I bought the hay from is also building a home this year and he helped me learn about the cost of architectual plans and how much the true cost vs value is. He also offered to split the cost of water and electricity to our places. You see we live in the county and getting new utilities is a massive expense. Im actually kind of shocked by how many people wind up paying full price simply because they're not really good neighbors. This way im potentially saving about 20k by joining him in the split. If that actually happens the simple act of triaging could save me as much as 20k for a single conversation. Pretty big win in my book.

So what's next? Well I did say this was a unit about Triage and I meant that. It's time to start dissecting the details. That old saying the "Devil is in the details" is only relevant with two parties if you are the party that doesn't know the details.

I've given you a fairly normal day in my life to get a feel for how I triage and more importantly, how could someone amass a fair amount of wealth just doing basic things on basic days? And that's the real lesson to take a way. By consciously chosing to priortize your "free days" with opportunites to make money, just by doing a few small things, you start to unlock opportunities that are all around you.

Let's talk about the thing on my list which has the biggest potential for a fairly immediate return of money and time for the smallest investment. The Microgreen business!

Back in 2022 my dad was killed in an accident and I started picking up some hobbies to keep myself distracted. One of them was small hobby farming, and before I knew it, the excess that I produced started to sell. One of the areas I picked up on was Microgreens. So what are those? Basically the easiest way to say it is sprouts (although it's not entirely correct its an easy way to describe it to get the point across). Once a seed sprouts, it's first week or so of life produces some truly phenomenal growth and wrapped up in that little sprout is all the nutrients that a full grown plant has kind of condensed down into tender baby greens. Microgreens are extremely healthy, fast to grow and easy to setup. Pound for pound they are very high priced too.

Essentially all that is needed are two little plastic trays. One with holes and one without. The version with holes goes on top. Then soil gets added to the trays along with seeds and a little water. They are kept in the dark under weight for a few days and then they sprout. Once they have germinated I put them under flourescent lights and fill the bottom tray with water every day. It takes about 7-10 days depending on the species to go from nothing to an edible product.

Once I started that and a few other things I created an LLC called Central Harvest Farms. So under that umbrella all my expenses are business related. I actually shut down the business on a pause for the last 18 months or so, I still operated but didn't try to expand or anything, and I quit growing any product. You see, my mom got diagnosed with ALS and full time care had to happen pretty soon. So, yes it's been a rough couple of years on a personal note, but the business got really good coverage locally and im ready to reopen.

The key to the Microgreens is that it is very little labor and effort for the return, and also competition is fairly low still. The trays that you see growing have a total cost of less than $2, but they retail for about $25. Biggest expense would be labor. For now i've been doing it on my own because I haven't expanded. But I have been making agreements with business owners and resturants to have a constant flow of orders. In small areas like I live in (less than 20k people), it can be difficult to grow past about 10 trays a week. But certainly not impossible. Even so you're looking at about $200 a week for no more than about 5 hours work total.

Growing the business with advertising and things does add some expense and effort but it definitely adds income. At a later date i'll take a deep dive on the expenses all the way through, but for now just know that it costs less than a $1000 to start this as a functioning business. Little by little it wouldn't be hard to find people that want to have part time work making about $20 - $25 an hour. As the owner I would still be making about that same amount and I would be doing virtually nothing. Even better I can employ my kids and pay them. If I haven't mentioned before, I have 3 autistic daughters. In some form, they are kind of limited on what they can do for work, but this is a turn key operation they can be a part of.

This is one small business revenue stream but it allows me to expand the Central Harvest Farms brand which brings in other customers for our grass fed beef, poultry, eggs, elephant garlic and mature veggies. We also have jams, seasonal wreaths, pecans, etc. And all of this is very much part time.

Later this year the central harvest farms website will go live and local + shipped orders will go out for everything i've mentioned + mushrooms and some starters. This business could grow into something completely self sustaining. And the only real reason it hasn't to this point, was the family tragedies already mentioned along with having our home built on the land. Once that is complete, Central Harvest Farms will likely go from part time to possibly full time with my software business (Firefly Tech Labs) becoming the part time thing.

This is partly because I enjoy that work, but very much for the purchasing power that it brings. You see the ability for CHF to purchase other assets is the real reason for the business. Not the mission statement or what it serves but the REASON it exists is to buy completely passive assets. We'll get into business structure at a different time, but for now just know that the goal is for me to own almost nothing, the business to own almost nothing, but it's parent entity to own everything and myself and the various LLC's to lease the owned things in order to purchase other cashflowing investments.

April 29th, 2025