Mastering Retail Productivity: Focusing On Importance Over Urgency
By Steven Shafer - Retail Enthusiast
Understanding this subtle, yet fundamental, building block of productivity can drastically change your retail business's chance for success.
Two questions: First, when was the last time you had to put out a fire? I am, hopefully, speaking figuratively for your professional day-to-day, and not because your cat thought it would be funny to mess with the dials on your toaster oven. Second question, when was the last time you started a project with the aim of moving toward a long-term goal? Chances are, you deal with urgent matters EVERY day on the retail floor. This cruel reality diminishes the likelihood of scheduling time for lingering, important issues that can change the course of your business.
It may be time to rethink the approach to urgent and important matters. Business owners take a current issue and make it urgent when it isn't and take everybody off their game, and this hinders productivity. They take the task in front of them and move it to the top of the pile without regard to whether it is really urgent. The only thing that often makes it important is its recency.
You may be familiar with the Eisenhower Matrix. If not, I have good news for you: it has nothing to do with robots. Reputedly, Dwight D. Eisenhower used this tool for deciding which tasks take priority. It works by prioritizing tasks by urgency and importance, each one results in 4 quadrants with different work strategies.
What is the difference between ‘Urgent’ and ‘Important’ tasks? Value.
An urgent task needs to be done, but doesn’t necessarily grow your business or make it more valuable. Issues like this keep us from important tasks, like better managing inventory intake to increase cash flow. Such a task should be planned for, scheduled, and executed as soon as possible to increase the value of your business. Usually a step toward accomplishing a long-term goal, the tasks you consider important for your business may vary. However, they always add value in some way.
When you think about it, many urgent matters crop up because of something beyond our control. At the time of this writing, the world is facing major supply chain issues largely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has created many challenges for a staggering number of businesses.
Atop the normal obstacles of competing for market share, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these daily challenges with the shift towards digital and, in some cases, staff reduction. Many independent retailers spend so much time trying to do it all. The mentality often being the company is their creation, and it dies if they don’t personally attend to its every need. Why is this dangerous thinking? First, burnout happens. An owner or manager may experience burnout from prioritizing urgent matters they could have delegated.
Secondly, stagnation happens. A business won’t grow if time is not scheduled for important tasks which advance its long-term goals. In retail, growth is needed to survive. A company not growing is dying. However, the current landscape encourages retailers to purchase excessive inventory with a panicked mindset -- "perhaps the supply chain issues will prevent us from being able to compete, and we will hemorrhage our budget on purchases to maintain our cash flow." The problem: buyers will feel they are making positive strides forward, but will actually be striding happily toward the edge of a cliff. Succumbing to trends will do nothing but hurt the bottom line in the long term and, in many cases, the short term.
Now, you may be thinking, “All this information is well and good, but focusing on importance over urgency is easier said than done”. Well, you are not wrong. I think it's intrinsically human to react rather than respond. Urgent matters seem easier to deal with; they give us a sense of instant gratification, and we feel busy. Plus, who needs self-reflection anyway, right? While tricking ourselves into feeling accomplished, we know the truth. It is rarely ‘easy’, and the easy way is not always the right or best way. Instant gratification can be the enemy of true progress. Busy does not mean being productive.
Onwards and Upwards.