Retail Time Management: Stop Juggling Everything and Finally Get Ahead!
episode
The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices
21 min
1 speaker
6 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why do independent retailers always feel like they’re falling behind?
Do you feel like you're juggling everything and always falling behind? Then you'll want to listen to this episode where I'm going to be talking you through time management tips for independent retailers. Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. I'm Katherine Erdely and this podcast is here to share retail industry trends, insights and best practices for you, the retailer who's serious about building something that lasts. How do you juggle everything in your retail business? This was a question that I got asked. I was out and about on my road trip through Devon, Cornwall and Dorset and I stopped into the beautiful town of Shaftesbury in Dorset and visited the absolutely stunning Fold store and met Karen, who is a podcast listener. So hi, Karen. And I asked Karen if she had any suggestions for what she'd like to hear on the podcast. And she said, what about how do you actually juggle everything?
And to be fair to Karen, this is not the first time I've been asked that question and for a very good reason. Independent retailers have their plates absolutely full and they're all spinning. The reality is if you run an independent retailer, then you have to buy stock, plan your range, you have to reorder stock, chase your suppliers, you're merchandising your store, doing your windows, you're working on your online store, maybe dispatching and posting orders. You've got all of your marketing to think about from email marketing, social media, your launches, creating content, customer service, managing your staff and rotors, bookkeeping, figuring out BAT, looking at your cash flow, as well as events, pop-ups or collaborations. And that's before...
Anything's even gone wrong, late deliveries, tech issues, team problems, or a slow week that just throws everything off. So the point is that you're not bad at managing your time, it's just that there is genuinely a lot to do. So the real question is not really how do I do everything, it's how do I decide what actually gets my time? And I'd also like to reassure you, if you're listening to this and thinking this sounds like me, that this is probably the number one issue that I work with clients one-to-one in my retail by design program. And I have worked with people who have had really, really tight restrictions on their time. I've worked with people who've got a couple of hours a day to work on their business after their kids go to bed, or they have got one day a week when they can actually not be on the shop floor. So it is
very common for me to come across people who have a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done. When I have someone who comes to me who has this issue, the first thing that I encourage them to do to really help us understand what is going on is to actually track their time. Because the first question is, how do I juggle everything? Is, well, how long is it all taking you and what are you actually doing anyway? So I suggest using either a notebook and a pen just to write down what you're doing and how long it's taking you. Or you can use something like a free app called Toggl, T-O-G-G-L, a little plugin on your browser that you can click at start and stop whenever you're doing tasks so that you can find out exactly how long things are taking you. And I suggest that you do it for about one or two weeks.
And once you've done that, you should start to build up a bit of a picture. What are you actually spending time on? Not what you think you're spending time on. Where are the time leaks? And where are you switching tasks constantly? So you might be doing lots of different things, but you're doing it really inefficiently.
How can tracking my time reveal hidden productivity leaks?
So what you often find is, one thing that I find really funny is that when people do this time tracking, often what they find is just the fact that they're tracking their time makes them more focused. Because when you sit down and you have to click a button that says, what are you working on right now? And you have to select something, makes you stop and think, well, actually, what am I doing right now? And so people often find that there's a lot of procrastination going on or a lot of procrastination disguised as busy work.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why do independent retailers always feel like they’re falling behind?
0:00–3:32
2
How can tracking my time reveal hidden productivity leaks?
3:32–7:23
3
What’s the best way to build a weekly structure and batch similar tasks?
7:23–11:18
4
How do I set boundaries to stop being constantly available and protect focus time?
11:18–14:43
5
What strategies help me identify extra capacity for big projects each quarter?
14:43–18:16
6
When should I delegate, simplify, or stop tasks to avoid overload?
18:16–21:16
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices
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