Hello,

I’ve gotten a few questions recently about increasing speed while indexing, including last week’s Q&A about subheadings. And while these are good questions and we can certainly discuss specific ways to increase speed, I think it is also important to keep in mind the foundations of speed, which I learned twenty years ago while learning how to plant trees.

Tree planting, if you are unfamiliar, is seasonal work in which crews of mostly young people replant forests after the loggers have gone through, and sometimes also after forest fires. (I have the sense that tree planting, as I experienced it, is a distinctly Canadian job, though I could be wrong.) My Dad, two uncles, and an aunt all planted while in university, and so once I was university-bound, it felt natural and somewhat like a rite of passage for me to also go planting. In the interior of British Columbia, where I planted and where my Dad’s family is from, the planting season typically runs from the beginning of May to the end of July, which fits well with the university calendar. Planting can also be an excellent way to earn a lot of money quickly—I earned enough to cover tuition and living expenses for the year—provided you work hard, are willing to tolerate rough living and working conditions, and, most importantly, can learn how to plant fast.

Tree planting is piece work, with the price, at least twenty years ago, averaging 9 to 11 cents per tree, sometimes a little more or less. Given how grueling the work is, spending all day outdoors on a clearcut, miles down a logging road in the middle of nowhere, while living in a tent in a camp with 60-80 other tree planters, it only feels worthwhile if you can earn more than a job in-town. My goal was to earn at least $200 per day, which meant planting at least 2000 trees per day.

The thing with planting and speed, though, is that it takes time to learn proper technique. To some extent the rookie year is a write-off, with the real money made when you return.

The procedure for planting a tree is as follows:

• Load up planting bags with 300 to 400 seedlings, a mix of pine and spruce. The bags are attached to a belt, strapped around the waist, one bag on each side with a third bouncing in the back. (I didn’t like how the weight felt in the back, so I loaded trees on my right and left sides, with my back pouch reserved for my water bottle.)
• Find the line on your piece of land assigned by the foreman.
• Take three to five steps, scanning the ground for a good planting spot. Look for a high spot, well drained, ideally with creamy soil or red rot. Next to a stump is usually a good option.
• While stepping forward, reach into your bag with your tree hand and pull out a seedling by the root plug.
• Also while stepping forward, raise shovel, with your other hand, and, when ready, throw it into the ground blade-first. (We would throw the shovel—precisely aimed—and release at the last moment to minimize impact on our hand and wrist.)
• In one fluid motion, open the whole using a curved stroke; insert the seedling, making sure that the root plug and tree are standing straight; and close the hole, either with a fist or a gentle kick.
• Take three to five steps and repeat.
• Oh, and well doing all of that, also occasionally rip off and drop pieces of flagging tape so you can see where you previously planted.

Easy, right?

Ideally, it takes ten seconds or less to plant a tree. Which is fast. You need to be in constant motion. Stopping to take a break or meandering across the block costs you money. But speed is only part of the equation.

The secret to planting quickly is to have no wasted movement. The eyes, hands, and feet all need to work in sync. While the eyes are looking ahead for where to plant next—while also watching out for branches, logs, and stumps, which are simultaneously tripping hazards, obstacles to maneuver around, and potential clues for where to plant—the hands and arms are already in motion, one hand selecting and preparing a seedling, all by feel, while the other arm is swinging and throwing the shovel. Bend over and both hands need to work together to open the hole, insert the tree, and close the hole.

It is tempting to move fast before the technique is locked in. After all, speed is money and we all wanted money. But my foreman, Hank, insisted that us rookies first learned proper technique. Yes, this meant that we would be slower in the short term. But an extra stroke or two with the shovel, multiplied 1500 or 2000 times over the course of a day, adds up. Fumbling for a tree, 1500 or 2000 times a day, adds up. Learn to plant efficiently and correctly, and more trees will get into the ground with less effort.

(Not only was wasted movement costly in terms of time, but poor technique could also lead to poorly planted trees. If the checkers found too many problems—j-roots, too shallow, too deep, leaning, too close together, too widely spaced, poor locations—you were sent back to replant, which meant planting the same tree twice but only paid once.)

Hank also taught speed, once he was satisfied with your technique. Hank would either plant alongside me or walk in front, pointing out good planting spots. These sessions were usually short, maybe 10 or 20 minutes, but they left me scrambling to keep up and they gave me a taste for the pace I needed to aim for. Until Hank pushed me, I had no idea my body could move that fast over a chewed up cut block while carrying 400 seedlings.

That first summer, I hit the 2000 tree mark only three or four times. By the time summer plant rolled around, in July, my technique was getting pretty good, but the terrain and planting conditions got more difficult and I was burning out. My second season, though, I hit 2000 trees within my first few days back and consistently pounded in 2000+ trees every day for the rest of the summer. I was officially a vet, no longer a rookie.

(To put this in perspective, consistently planting 2000 trees per day is a good benchmark for separating vets from rookies, though the real highballers in camp would consistently plant 3000+ trees per day. I never did crack that milestone, and I retired from planting after two summers to focus on less lucrative but more relevant summer employment, which eventually led to me learning how to index.)

Bringing this back to indexing, I still think in terms of technique first, speed second. Or, better yet, as an iterative cycle. Start with technique, add in speed, then go back to technique to see if anything can be adjusted in light of the new speed, and on and on.

There are definitely ways to become more efficient and fast while indexing, including utilizing software, keyboard shortcuts, and creating macros, but while having their place, a macro, for example, can’t fix a poor understanding of index structure. Or, rapidly picking up and then deleting irrelevant entries is probably going to take more time than accurately assessing from the start what is indexable.

If you want to be a quick indexer, start with learning and internalizing indexing fundamentals and best practices. Learn how to make better decisions and cleaner drafts. It may feel like slowing down in order to think through decisions, but these are decisions that will hopefully set you up for a strong finish. And yes, also add in macros and other shortcuts, and experiment with your process, but keep coming back to technique. What makes for a good index? How can you refine your process to support writing a good index? Start with quality, and speed, to some extent, will take care of itself.

Yours in indexing,

Stephen