1. Do find and work with professional assistance. Work with professionals to ensure that the timber harvest advances your management objectives. Review the individual timber harvesting roles section in this article to identify the professional assistance available to help you navigate the timber sale process.

2. Do use timber harvesting as a management tool. Planning a timber harvest as far in the future as possible allows planning and actions to ensure the woodland is ready to be harvested.

3. Do utilize a written contract. The contract can protect the woodland owner, buyer, and logger and keep everyone on the same page.

4. Do monitor your woodland during and following the timber harvest. Make sure the woodland is growing and progressing as it should following the harvest—guard against invasive plants and control them when spotted.

5. Do treat your woodlands as the valuable resource they are. Properly managed woodlands can be more productive and healthy. Too often, wodlands are forgotten until a crisis arises.

1. Don’t conduct a timber sale without a written woodland management plan. A written woodland management plan prepared by a professional forester can help to make sure you know which trees you are selling, why you are selling them, and how the harvest can meet your management objectives.

2. Don’t (necessarily) take the first offer or rush into a timber harvest. You would not sell your house without having some idea of what it is worth; why should your timber, which takes longer to grow than it takes to pay off a mortgage, be any different? How will harvesting advance your management objectives?

3. Don’t rely on verbal agreements to sell your timber. Verbal agreements can lead to misunderstandings and unintended consequences.

4. Don’t conduct a timber harvest that degrades your woodlands. Selective timber harvests just means that not all the trees are cut. Avoid timber harvests based only on a minimum diameter as well as those that just harvest the highest quality trees.

5. Don’t navigate the timber sale process uninformed. It takes a long time to grow trees so when you decide to harvest utilize the professional assistance available before the first tree is harvested.