Farmers First: Farming’s hidden taxes
What sort of taxes do you pay in your farm life?
Chances are you’re familiar with the more common taxes: income, sales, payroll, property, self-employment, inheritance.
But what about the switch tax? I only recently learned about the switch tax from one of my podcast guests, and it’s much more costly than you might think.
Switch Tax Basics
The switch tax describes the mental load involved in quickly changing from one task to another. When I think back to the amount of task switching I did as a full-time farmer, my head starts to spin. One day stands as a shining example.
It was a hot, summer day. My dad interrupted me from whatever task I was doing and asked if I could give him a hand. The new task? Get in the brook and unclog our irrigation system’s intake strainer, which was firmly embedded in the muck.
I’d like to pretend I was chosen for this job because of my exceptional skill and unparalleled dedication, but the fact is that none of the menfolk wanted to get their jeans and work boots wet and muddy. Since I usually ran around the farm in bare feet and shorts, I was the logical choice.
I hopped into the brook, wrestled the strainer away from the ooze and set it on more solid footing. As I hauled myself back onto solid ground, I looked down and gasped. I was covered in leeches.
I don’t know how you feel about leeches, but I am most definitely not a fan. As a young child, I was emotionally scarred watching the leech-covered Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart drag the African Queen through a river.
The fact that I am now an adult does absolutely nothing to ease my disgust.
I looked down at my slimy, leechy body, trying to stay calm and not embarrass myself in front of the men when I heard a voice calling my name. It was my mom. She was at the farm stand, holding the cordless phone in her hand and waving it over her head at me.
Seriously?! It was the contact person for an upcoming farm tour – and I was the person responsible for scheduling, managing and running said tours. I stood in the lawn behind the stand – dripping wet, covered in creeping critters – and steadfastly projected an aura of professionalism as I discussed pricing, activities and logistics with the client.
All the while, my pounding heart and churning stomach reminded me that leeches were literally sucking the blood out of me while I talked.
Finally, I could stand it no more. “I think you have everything you need at the moment. We can touch base tomorrow if you have any further questions. I’m actually covered in leeches right now and have to go take a shower.”
Yes. I really said that. Transparency is both my greatest gift and greatest curse.
I hung up the phone, raced into the house, cleaned up and headed back to the farm stand to pick up where I had left off before the leeches intervened.
That, farm family, is task switching. You might be thinking, “Hey, girl, that’s just farming.” And it is. But it comes with a price.
The switch tax results in fuzzy focus, diverted energy and wasted time. That can translate into lost income, fractured relationships and reduced quality of life.
You can see it in my story.
Instead of staying focused on my rst task until it was completed, I started work, got redirected once by my dad, got redirected again by my mom and got redirected a third time by the need for a shower. By the time I returned to the original task (which even today I cannot remember), I was distracted, frazzled and emotionally spent.
That first task took longer to complete and most likely was completed less satisfactorily due to the repeated interruptions.
As for my client, I had already created a trusting relationship with them, so they were able to hear that I was infested with parasites without cancelling their tour. A new client might not have been so understanding and might have chosen a different farm for their event.
In some cases, the tax for task switching is literally a matter of life and death.
A recent study by Dr. Yiwen Jin, Ph.D., found that skilled transplant surgeons who went from one type of transplant surgery straight to another saw a 14.8% increase in one-year mortality compared to the average. The study showed that the switch tax decreased the gap between experienced and beginning surgeons by more than half, basically nullifying years of practice and skill.
What does that mean for farmers?
Lets say you go from baling hay to plowing a field to driving the transplanter without a break. Each time you switch tasks, your quality of work decreases.
Your ability to respond to emergencies decreases. Your awareness of potential problems decreases.
That’s when revenue suffers. That’s when accidents happen. That’s when people get hurt.
Fortunately, you can help mediate the switch task with these steps:
1. Group similar jobs together so that your brain can work in the same way for longer periods of time.
2. Take breaks so that your brain has time to literally switch into a new gear before starting a new task.
3. Learn different tasks. The more expertise you have in different tasks, the easier it is for you to switch between them. (Newer, less familiar tasks take more of a tax.)
4. Use tech wisely to help you reduce the tasks you need to do as well as to help organize tasks in a logical manner. (Just be careful your tech itself isn’t an added tax!)
Not sure how to manage your switch tax? Email me at kcastrataro@pen-light.org so we can chat.
It’s your time to grow!
by K. Castrataro
