Functional supplies for professional horse people?

[TinFoilHat]

Hey y’all - very random question; I’m interested to see what a greater sample size (beyond my trainer) thinks.

So I have a small business venture that I have been working on for several months related to planning and productivity tools (think sticky notes, stickers, etc.). I noticed a couple of things when looking for planners and other types of productivity tools to keep me organized at work; what I found was either functional but really boring, not at all effective (for work organization) but trendy, or lastly not at all what I am looking for both functionally, aesthetically or quality wise.

ANYWAYS - I was going over this with my trainer and she mentioned that it would be cool if what I made could translate to her world as a professional rider and trainer. Most everything could, of course, since the core of what I make is simply to enhance productivity and add options for functionality, simply. But it got me thinking about a subset of products specifically targeted to the horse community.

From this conversation I learned that my trainer is very much a pen and paper gal. My assumption prior to this conversation was that most horse people are tech people because you don’t want to have paper in a barn. She clarified that she doesn’t necessarily keep paper in the barn, but she plans and records in her office in the house (she lives on her property).

So here are my questions:
1. Are you a paper and pen horse person?
(Professional or not, but specifically related to horse ‘stuff’ - so tracking vet and farrier appointments, training logs, lesson logs, etc.)
2. If there was a functional tool/product on the market geared towards horse people, would it be something you’d hypothetically click on to learn more about?
(Notice how I didn’t ask if this is something you’d necessarily purchase - there’s a lot more that goes into the behavioral economics for a purchase and I don’t think asking that question without an example is fair)

Thanks gang! Super excited to see if my assumption about all horse people being tech people is incorrect.

[Scribbler]

I use pen and paper as ammie. My bills are all on paper. If I needed a schedule at the barn I’d use whiteboard or paper. If I have folks doing horse care I have paper schedules and instructions taped to feed bins. We have chalk boards in the barn.

In order to get out my phone I need to get the phone out of my zippered pouch, take off my gloves, get out of the sun, and if the barn doesn’t have wifi, turn on my data. It’s a multi step process.

Most of this kind of stuff needs to be shared and you can’t assume anyone will be able to share your app or find your text message when needed.

However I also don’t use Google calendar or the like to message me about events.

We have a whiteboard calendar in the indoor arena and an online calendar on our website for instruction times. Several instructors can’t figure out how to use the online calendar.

[Walk_N_Gal88]

I use pen and paper. I cannot do digital. Show schedules, farrier, vet, chiro, feed schedules, worming schedules, clinics, events,
parties, everything is pen and paper.

[TinFoilHat]

Thanks Scribbler - appreciate your response. I also do all of the above as an ammie - mostly because I have all of my work, personal and horse stuff in one planner so I’m always looking at it. Doesn’t necessarily go to the barn - but it’s all tracked on paper/in one place.

[TinFoilHat]

I’m usually fairly technology adept, but for the horse stuff for some reason I have NOT been able to do digital. App, Google Drive, whatever. I’m team Pen and Paper as well

[EmilyM]

i’m a mix. still use white board for communicating with others. i have a vet record app that I like but honestly sometimes it’s harder than my old book / binder because of internet connections or App snafus

Yes I would click that link.

[luvmyhackney]

I use Gsuite for 99% of everything home, work, horses.

I used to use office but it’s easier to give my horses free gmail accounts.

I have a whiteboard for everything else.

[Walk_N_Gal88]

I meant to add that yes I’d click on it to check it out. Just did that with Hippovibe (not keeping that either though)

[Xanthoria]

Digital for everything - it’s all on my phone in Google Sheets, mostly.

That said, because we are required to take temperatures and have them displayed at shows, please create a mini whiteboard for show temp logs with the following:

1. Space for horse name
2. Three columns printed on it: days of the week, AM and PM
3. Holder for pen and thermometer
4. Ability to attach to stall at shows

thanks!

[Jump314]

I have two horses at home and I’m the only person who takes care of them. I use Excel to keep track of their vaccinations, shoeing, deworming, and any other health-related things. I have a separate Excel sheet listing all of the horse trials/shows in my area for the year.

I have a calendar (one month) whiteboard in the barn. On there, I keep track of what kind of rides I do each day, when I switch turnout for summer/winter, when I body clip, etc, and I add their farrier and vet appointments to it as a reminder. I also add their appointments to my phone calendar. I take a picture of the whiteboard at the end of each month then save the picture to my computer, in case I want to look back to see when something happened.

No, I wouldn’t be interested in some other system since mine works well for me.

[LCDR]

White board all the way. If I am out and about and think of something that I need to add to the board I just email it to myself and enter it on the white board later. And I keep a written log, like a daily diary to keep track of things like tractor repairs, fertilizer applications, seeding times, fire ant bait and such.

And to keep track of pounds of daily hay feeding I use an abacus. Well not really, but it has colored beads I slide on a rod. Each ball represents one pound and each color the horse.

[dmveventer]

I’m not a pro but almost all of the show barns I’ve ridden in have been pen + paper people. Usually a combo of a notebook or binder plus multiple whiteboards, maybe a big calendar somewhere too. My current barn is more tech-savvy and every time we get someone new on staff they remark on what a big adjustment it is to do most things online (and we still have several whiteboards and a paper calendar on the wall). This may be changing with the generations but in general I don’t view horse pros as a particularly tech-savvy demographic.

I personally use a combo of digital and paper methods, mostly because I don’t carry my physical notebook around with me so anything I might need to reference on the fly needs to be in my phone. Google Cal and Google Keep are lifesavers, and not just for the horse stuff. The more strategic things like planning out my rides for the week get done on paper in the same notebook I use to organize the rest of my life. I might click on a product geared for horse people out of curiosity but as a one-horse ammy I think it’d be impractical to have totally separate systems for horses and everything else.

[Scribbler]

Online systems make sense when you need to coordinate multiple people across different physical locations like work sites or departments. Especially if they are already online for their jobs.

They don’t make that much sense to coordinate people who are all in the same physical space and are not online while they are in that space.

[sherian]

I use a paper day planner and a paper address book for my farrier business and a paper day planner for my personal horses at home. My cell phone lives in my car when I am working because the last thing I want it to do is ring, bing or vibrate when I am under a nervous horse. With our extreme climate here (Manitoba) when I get back to my car it is often shut down due to the cold or the heat so a paper book and pencil is far more reliable. So for new tools unless the battery is vastly improved to withstand temperature they are not much use for me.
I do find the people who put their appointments in the calender on their smart phone are far more likely to forget than those who stick the appointment card on the fridge.

[yaya]

Ammy with 3 horses at home and one at the trainer’s. Paper and pen all the way, baby!

Cannot live without my “brainbook” (weekly planner) for both my personal life and my horse records. So much easier and faster to write than type, nothing to have to turn on, log into, subscribe to, or keep charged, just flip to a page. I do keep a sort of “summary record” for each horse in forms I created in Word, but even those are printed out and kept in a binder for easy reference.

For me, if it’s not written/printed out, it doesn’t exist.

However, to sort of cross over with the decluttering thread, I did just toss 10 years of my barn calendars from 25 years ago. Now tell me, could I have kept records that long with the way technology changes so often? (Of course, I am still on a PC with Windows 7, so I pretty much am a luddite.)

[chestnutmarebeware]

I’m totally pen-and-paper for my personal record keeping and use a bright red leather Filofax (anyone remember those? ) for my calendar, note pages, addresses, business card organizers (mine and other people’s), etc.

The beauty about Filofax is that they also sell a ton of both fun and functional add-ons that you can buy to add into your planner—things like a map of the London Underground, photo sleeves, change holders, ruler, calculator, post-it notes, etc.

Since it’s a British company that still has enough US buyers to support a US website, I’ll bet that some horse and/or pet management add-ons would sell fairly well to their audience on both sides of the pond. I’d love to buy a vet records insert package where I could track vet and farrier care and schedules. And other horse-keeping-related items too.

Filofax has a proprietary hole-punch structure, meaning the Day Planner and other brand inserts won’t fit, but I’ll bet there are already third-parties creating Filofax-fitting goodies.

[Libby2563]

@LCDR

And to keep track of pounds of daily hay feeding I use an abacus. Well not really, but it has colored beads I slide on a rod. Each ball represents one pound and each color the horse.

This is my new favorite thing.

[trubandloki]

@Libby2563

@LCDR

And to keep track of pounds of daily hay feeding I use an abacus. Well not really, but it has colored beads I slide on a rod. Each ball represents one pound and each color the horse.

This is my new favorite thing.

I second this thought.

And here I had been doing the boring thing of writing down the number of bales and such as I used them.
This is far more fun.

[yaya]

One thing that I would definitely use in my planner for the horses:

SMALL stickers, like .3” square, to put on my calendar for things like vet, vax, farrier, dewormer, other meds. I’ve seen stickers, but most are either way too big, not my style, or sets that have too few of what I want and too many of what I don’t need. I like them simple, in color, and not cutesy. And in sheets of one type, not variety sets.

And of course, the stickers I end up using usually stop being produced shortly thereafter! (Yes, that includes you, Adequan! Why did you switch to a card I’ll just lose?)

[Walk_N_Gal88]

I’m going to make some more on my Cricut here soon. Which ones do you need and how big? I can make some more and send them to you