45 + Amazing Time Management Tips For Retailers

The retail business pays lots of attention to different things at once. The owners often feel like they don’t have enough time for everything. 

They have to organize the inventory to make sure that their employees are working well. 

For them, struggling to balance performing every duty and keeping the business on track can be a great hurdle. 

To business, especially owners, need to understand how to manage their time to give equal attention to everything. 

amazing time management tips

By making a few changes, retailers can do time management and save themselves from the stress and the burden it brings.

Contents

Why Is Time Management For Retailers Important?

Time management is a planning and exercising process that helps in conscious control of spending time. It helps in understanding where to spend your time to get maximum productivity and results.

Instead of working harder, time management focuses on working smarter.

In retail, time management helps improve the performance of your and your staff. But it helps in achieving the goals within the set time. 

effects of poor time management

Time is one of those assets that can’t be replaceable. Especially in today’s world, time is much value compared to money for retailers. 

The business is getting competitive, and wasting time can keep you behind in the race. It’s important to know what needs your attention and where your focus should be. 

Time management Tips and Ideas in retail:

Get Work Done On Time 

One major benefit of time management in retail is completing your work without delay. 

When you have time allotted for the tasks and everything is organized. It becomes much easier to focus and know how much you have completed. 

With the help of time management, you wire your brain to follow the structure and get the work completed within a set of times.

Upgrade Quality Of Work 

The quality of work depends on time and how attentive you are when you are doing it. 

People get frustrated in case of late work, which shows in their work. You do not just end up wasting more time, but it affects the overall result. 

Being an owner, your responsibility is to set an example for your staff. Time management helps you guide your work and prioritize your focus, leading to quality improvement. 

Boost In Productivity & Efficiency 

Working as a professional, you need more productivity, and time management helps you in achieving that. 

These skills help you in performing the work before the time without degrading the quality. It automatically boosts your performance efficiency without wasting too much time.

With this, you learn to manage important and not-so-important work. It helps your brain focus on what matters instead of what you think matters.

Decrease In Procrastination 

Procrastination is a state that happens to everyone. No matter what work you do, the idea of doing it later and keep making such an excuse happens. 

Not just you delay your work, but work done in a hurry always shows bad results. 

Applying the tricks of getting rid of procrastination helps you in dealing with such a situation. It also boosts you to work harder and get the best of your potential. 

With the help of such tricks, you can remove such ideas and quickly focus on work. 

Reduce Stress & Anxiety 

There is a situations when employees can get overwhelmed because they have too much to handle. For business owners, this can be one of the common situations. 

These effects your productivity, but feeling stressed makes a negative impact on your health too. It can lead to a problem regarding heart, obesity, and depression. 

Time management skills help in reducing such situations. Also, you can learn how to use the tough situation for your learning which makes sure you don’t get stressed. 

Better Growth And Opportunity 

Time management helps you to understand the value of time. Not just it’s one of the traits that attract potential people to your business. 

But for the businessman, it improves the customer relationship too. With time management, you learn to respect the customer’s time too. It boosts the speed of work and makes your customer happy. 

Time Management Tips For Effective Results 

Time is money, and even though the saying is old, it’s still valid. Understanding the art of time management to use it in beneficial and effective ways is crucial for retailers. 

elements of time management

Poor time management does not just affect productivity, but it also reduces your sales as well as overall results. 

Since you have 24 hours, understanding how to use every single second for your goal is what is going to lead to success. 

Here are 30 tips you can understand to improve your time management for retailers. 

1. Stop Considering It As Time Management 

The first and utmost important rule of time management is not to manage your time at all. 

You have 24 hours in a day, so no matter what you do, there will be certain things you will end up postponing to the next day.

Also, your productivity has its limit too. No matter how hard you focus, your body has a certain energy to match it. 

Time management can’t help you in replacing your ability, but it can help you in using your ability and skills to meet most of the work done in a limited time. 

2. Learn What’s Important Instead Of Multitasking 

Multitasking can be helpful, but in some situations, using it for everyday purposes is not healthy for the business. 

The first thing you need to understand is to divide your work into what is important and what is the priority. 

However, prioritizing is not simple, and it can be confusing for business owners to list what is on that list. 

For you, the customers, employees, and finances can be the first as well as non-negotiable work. 

tips to prioritizing work

Apart from these, no matter what arises, they can be put into a secondary list. 

3. Empower Your Subordinates 

For business owners, the feeling of doing everything on their own is extremely normal.  

However, it’s not healthy and can cause great damage to the business. When your business is in a growing state, you must share your responsibility with others instead of relying on yourself completely.

Business owners should know how to trust their subordinates and understand that those people are hired by them. 

Your subordinates are a valuable part of your business; share the necessary duties with them to make them feel valued and empowered too. 

4. Manage Your Attention Span 

You can do one thing at a time. If your goal is to boost your quality of time, then focus on things that can distract you while working. 

Checking your social media or emails can alone take lots of time of yours. With this, you can manage your time and limit it to certain hours. 

Make sure not to exceed so that you can use the rest of your sin other valuable work. 

tips manage attention span

The same goes for your employees; make sure they are not wasting their time doing lots of things altogether. Fix their hours to eliminate distractions.

Make sure you are not creating too much oppression for your employees.

Pro Tip: To use their productivity without making them feel exhausted, give them short breaks. Also, encourage them to do one work at one time, so they can focus more while doing their job. 

5. Understand The Importance of Urgency 

It’s crucial for the business to target what is really important to address. 

There can be many things you might feel you need to give your attention to and should do. But make sure they are really urgent topics. 

Before you use your time, make sure if it’s urgent or important. If your answer is no to both, then you need more reasons to use your valuable time. 

Such matters can wait, and you can use your convenience time to solve the issue. 

6. Make a List To Save Time 

Making a list is important. However, not every person feels like they really need it or feel natural about it. 

But making a list of your important tasks can help you in knowing what is needed to complete that day. 

Also, it will give you an overall idea about how to use your time to meet all the goals decided for the day.

how to create todo list

For a retailer, it can be difficult to remember details about a single thing. Making lists can help you remember small but important works too. 

Having a list ready also gives you relaxation as your day is planned and well organized. 

7. Consider A Time Management System 

The time management system can be a great help, especially if your retail shop is extremely busy and you want exercise for conscious control.

The time management system can boost productivity by helping you and your staff focus on one thing and dedicate the given hours to get effective results. 

Some of the systems that you can consider are the Pomodoro Technique, the Eisenhower system, and POSEC method.

There are a lot more options you can find in the market. Use their trials to understand how effective it is for you and your employees.

8. Find Harmony Between Personal & Business 

Finding a distance between work and personal life is difficult, especially when you are a small business owner. 

For the owners, it can be a burden to keep their work away and keep themselves present in everyday life. 

The simple thing you can do here is to find harmony between both. Understand prioritizing your schedule and time without considering how much energy it takes. 

Feeling overwhelmed is normal, especially when your business is going through different stages.

9. Update Your Inventory Regularly 

For business, you must know what you have on hand in order to sell. Not knowing your proper inventory can lead to more unsatisfied customers. 

It’s crucial to have proper control over your inventory so you can run your business smoothly. 

For example, consider the situation of getting demands on certain products, and without knowing if it’s available or not, you are placing it. 

When you will know the situation, not just it will hurt the sales and drive your customers to the competitors. But also your customers might not feel trusting due to a bad experience. 

POS or Point of sale helps you in keeping your inventor organized and planned. You can use software to track your stocks and how much time it would take to refill it back. 

10. Build Time For Breaks 

People are brainwashed with the thought of breaks as being unproductive or showing a sign of laziness. 

According to science, the human brain is not structured for doing long work that takes lots of time. That’s why focusing on some such tasks can turn them unproductive. 

why time break is important

Breaks are an important part of your productivity and time management. Manage your time by taking a 15-minute break between work. 

It will give you a space to retain your energy and allow your mind to focus back on the work. 

Pro Tip: For starting, Break your day between 15-minute breaks twice in a day. Keep one 15-minute break for mid-morning and one for around 3 pm

11. Choose Tools That Can Help 

POS solutions are helpful, but not every single one is made for you. 

Different owners use tools believing in getting affordable prices but not considering the time they are investing. 

There is some system that can help you in increasing the purchase. But there might not be changes in other aspects. 

Also, how many hours you spend on tracking inventory, administration tasks, and other work plays an important role in summing up the worth. 

If the investment in POS helps you in saving seven to eight hours on other work like admin and inventory, you can use the hours on other important work in your business. 

12. Limite, The Load Of Information 

Lots of times, you are exposed to tons of information. Not always; they are helpful, especially when you are not implementing it anywhere. 

Such informatics cause unnecessary confusion and fatigue in your mind. Limiting your information intake puts a minimizing approach, so you take what you need. 

As the same approach goes for your staff, it’s important for your business to limit the information intake, so you focus only on things that help you in becoming an efficient boss or employee. 

Ensure your employees know the key role of information and how it affects the business. 

13. Regular Analyzing The Reports 

Reports are helpful for understanding how many hours you are spending on your work. Along with this, you can find ways to save extra hours and manage different work. 

Such kinds of records can help you understand your inventory. Along with detailed information about your actions and how they’re working for you. 

With the help of regular analyzing reports, you can also plan your future. It can highlight the mistakes that are taking extra money or time from you. 

14. Set The Boundaries 

For owners, it’s a lot to take, and on top of everything, you have to call all the shots.

It’s important to limit the boundaries of how much people can interact and interrupt you. 

For example, if your employees are interested in you for questions or quotes, make sure to give them certain minutes or hours of your schedule.

But put a boundary for them, so they don’t come to you every hour of the day. Make sure to keep it strict and let your employee find the solution on their own too. 

The same goes for personal conversation, getting into gossip, and other stuff that can damage your productivity. 

Pro Tip: Never ignore the interactions, as they will affect your relationship with others. But make a strict boundary of time so people know when to stop and when they can contact you. 

15. Track Every Single Thing 

Numbers play an important role in the performance and constructing your time. 

Especially when it’s related to the accounting of your business, you should have journals tracking the actions and investments in the business. 

Make sure not to miss anything, as it can help you in future planning. Ignoring small details can cause some damage to your strategies or plans. 

reasons time track in retail

Also, tracking the transactions is crucial. It will save you from wasting time looking for one entry for hours. 

Tracking helps you save time, and you can find the results much better and more effectively. 

16. Consider The Option Of Outsourcing 

There are lots of things you might not know how to do it. For example, accounting is not something every business owner knows. 

But it’s important, and wasting hours to understand everything will consume a lot of time. 

Consider the average hours an owner spends a year, around 30 to 40 hours. You can use an on-staff account, outsource firm, or freelancer to help you out. 

With that, you save yourself from all hassles but also save a great amount of time. 

17. Get A Curfew On Use of Technology 

Technology curfew is needed in business, especially for health and productivity.

According to research, technology affects sleep patterns by suppressing melatonin. It’s a chemical that the human body needs to follow its sleep pattern.

When your sleep gets disturbed, it affects your energy and focused ability too. This can have negative results on overall performance.

Exposure to technology late at night or engaging your hours in checking emails can affect productivity. 

With the help of curfew, you can adjust the time you spend using technology. Also, it improves sleep, and you can feel much more charged up for starting your day. 

18. Keep It Synced 

Since technology is evolved, there are lots of solutions that can help you in keeping your work hassle-free. 

For example, why do you need to waste time on entries for every transaction on your own? With the help of a POS system, you can do it. 

Software like Shopkeep and Quickbooks allows you to streamline every accounting process. And you can sync the sales transaction directly to your register. 

With everyday transactions, the entries will be updated automatically and more consistently. Not just can you save lots of hours, but it will keep the work fast. 

19. Focus On Your Planning 

Planning can help you eliminate the tasks that can cost you time or money. 

For example, if you are planning to recruit more people. Then you can set the priority and qualities before you post for the ads. 

Also, add the working hours and the requirement that you are looking for a suitable candidate. 

Planning in detail can help you in hiring the right person. It will also save you from wasting time on taking interviews with people who are not suitable. 

20. Don’t Get Sucked Into Mediocrity 

The feeling of getting work done can be too much, enough to choose the mediocre options. 

Well, in business, avoid choosing such options. Mediocrity does not just waste your potential but your time and efforts too. 

If you are looking for an employee to hire, wait for the person who can suit the role. 

Instead of choosing anyone just to fill the space and get work done will waste time, cause your work to get doubled, and affect sales.

Pro Tip: In such a situation, the damage will be much more to cover. If you are in a hurry, you can hire people on a contract basis for a limited time. 

21. Get Most Of The Work In the Morning 

According to science, people have much more willpower when they start the day. It’s the utmost important hours that can be much more productive as compared to a complete day. 

The morning can be helpful in getting most of the work done. Use your morning to get important responsibility from your to-do list done. 

strategies keep morning less stressful

Also, the morning is the least distracting hour; using an hour for your work can boost your productivity. 

22. Work On Training 

Training your staff can help you in using the time in a much better way. 

Consider a situation like when your employee is not well trained, and they have to handle the checkout process. Not only will they take much longer, but they also make your customers feel more frustrated than ever. 

Your customers look at your staff as a part of a company. Having untrained staff shows a lack of professionalism and seniority toward the customers. 

Pro Tip: Add more practical modules, and you can use online training programs to make your staff more skillful. 

The better your employee knows their work, the faster and efficiently your company will work. 

23. Break Works Into Small Chunks 

To increase productivity, use your bigger goals, and break them into small chunks. It will make it more damaged and easier to achieve. 

Work every day and keep it going. Without even knowing, you will be doing something every day, and there will be a time when you achieve it. 

Taking small steps toward your big goals and completing small ones along the way will boost confidence. 

Pro Tip: There might be a situation that will cause a delay. Make sure you keep some room for such work too. 

24. Don’t Give Up On Learning 

Time management includes learning too. Some situations might be out of your control; use such a situation as a challenge and learn from it. 

The same goes for your staff, don’t assume that they can handle everything. Keep their education as an ongoing process throughout their work.

Learning from problematic situations gives me much more confidence. Also, it leads to learning how to use the odds to save time and get results. 

25. Start WIth an Easy Task 

Procrastination is a nightmare, and no one escapes from this.

However, people have their ways of handling such situations. If you started work, but now you are dealing with procrastination, focus on the simple task first. 

Lots of time, your work adds pressure on you, which affects your performance. Such self-imposed pressure can increase the procrastination level. 

tips avoid procrastination work

To get rid of this, make a list of the work you need to do. Start with the simple one and keep going. Once you see the tick marks on work done, it will boost your confidence and remove the pressure too.

Pro Tip: Save yourself from big work or tough tasks. It will slow down your process. You can work on that stuff when you find the pace. 

26. Keep the Least Productive Work for Last 

There might be some routine habits that are killing your important hours. For example, it can be your open-ended meetings with employees, paying the bills online, or pickups taking space. 

There must be some work that is not necessary anymore but is still added to your worklist. Keep such work for the last hours. 

Eliminating the least productive work can help you in freeing up more than 20 % of work in a day. 

Pro Tip: Start your list of works that are taking too much time. Highlight the ones that are not necessary anymore and eliminate those quickly. 

27. Start Your Day Little Early 

Instead of starting too early than your regular hours can lead to exhaustion and less productivity too. Instead of that, start a little early instead of regular working hours. 

It will help you in doing your work much faster and avoid distractions. Also, waking up early helps you remove the pressure you must go through the whole day. 

It will allow you room to breathe and relax. Also, you can use the rest of your free hours on another task.  

Pro Tip: Start with 10 to 20 minutes earlier every night and keep it going. You will feel like you are naturally falling into the habit without making much difference. 

28. Include Budget For Everything 

Budget is the part that you should not ignore if you want business in the long run. 

Lots of owners let the budget on their recipient papers, cups, etc., let go. However, when you are doing business. Every single thing you spend money on matters.

Including the inventory order, historical records, and projection for future use help in determining the overall purchase.

Every investment matters to your budget. Knowing where you are spending and what you are receiving can help you in cutting down on the extras. 

By this, you can save a huge amount of money, but also you will know what is the actual cost you need for everyday purchases. 

29. Write Everything 

There is a reason why people write their thoughts and ideas. Not just for having a collective bank where you can store information. 

But remembering everything causes energy consumption in your head that makes your mind tired. 

There might be lots of small tasks you need to get done, but due to focusing on everything, it can get slipped. 

Instead of adding pressure to your mind, create a habit of writing. No matter what you need to do, get a paper or anything where you can write it down. 

You can do this with your staff too. Create such a habit, so people know what they are supposed to do. Once they complete it, they can sign it off.

30. Eliminate The Mess From the Workplace 

The place where your work can affect your productivity and time management. 

If the desk where you work is messed up, you will take many more hours to get one work done. Also, it will create confusion, and you might end up missing a few things that will take more hours to get right. 

Make sure your workplace is clean and well organized. Use simple tricks to get easy and fast work done. 

Pro Tip: Use color code when you are arranging the files. It will keep your work easier and take less time to find. 

31. Follow the ‘One Touch’ Rule 

Once touch rule says to act on what to do as fast as you can. Instead of giving a second option to your head. The more time your brain gets, the less fast you will work.

According to the one-touch rule, if you start with an email or a document, make sure to either read it or remove it. Don’t put second thoughts or waste another second on deciding. 

With this rule, you train your mind to take fast action instead of delaying it to the next minute.

32. Understand Why Finance Ratio Matters

Every store has a quick ratio. The ratio can be divided into more like price earning, debt-equity, etc.

Financial ratios are an important part when you are considering a financial statement. With a learning ratio, you can save time as well as get a much faster conclusion with one quick look. 

33. Don’t Check Emails In the Morning 

According to a Deloitte survey, at least 43% of consumers check their phones after 5 minutes of waking up.

The rest of the 17% check their phones much faster. 

With this, you are training your mind to act in a reactive state. This affects productivity and damages the ability to make strategic decisions.

Also, it affects and puts a limit on your time management too. 

34. Plan Your Day Ahead

Similar to a do list, but make one before the day starts. Make sure you know what important work you need to do tomorrow, so you stop wasting time arranging things instead of doing them.

Arrange your overall day before one night. However, make sure you don’t get too strict. It’s not about making step-by-step plans. 

But to-do lists will guide you to know how to shuffle a day, so you complete the urgent task. 

35. Manage Your Time With Others 

Maybe you want to have a conversation with someone. It can be personal or professional. Or maybe you want to do a follow-up on certain sales. 

Make sure you have time fixed for such work. Get some time from your schedule to mingle with others. Also, you can use some hours talking with others or vice versa. 

Getting calls from friends, family, or someone else when you are working can distract you. It takes time to get back to the focus. 

Also, make this information available to everyone. So they know when you are available to take calls and respond. 

36. Use Templates For One Kind Work 

There is certain work you need to do every day. It can be sending an email. Or using the fax, sending proposals, or making reports.

Such works have their template that you follow. Instead of making it from scratch, make it easy to apply a template for every work. 

You can get your work done without arranging everything from the start. Also, it will give you peace of mind that you will not make any errors while using the template. 

37. Listen To Feedback 

Your customer has important things to say, so they focus on their feedback. 

Make some time to check the feedback of your customers. They might be giving you some ideas or reporting errors. 

Lots of feedback includes services that might not be working, and you have no idea about it. 

With this, you can fix it before you waste more time and money on it. Also, it will help you in improving your relationship with your customers too. 

Pro Tip: When you correct something after getting feedback, make sure to repost it. Let the customer know that their feedback is important for your business. 

Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQs)

Why is time management helpful for retail business?

Time management helps the owners and staff to understand prioritizing their work. Instead of focusing on everything at once, they work on one thing at one time. It improves the quality, which leads to better opportunity and customer satisfaction. 

How can time management reduce stress for retailers?

Time management helps in breaking large goals into small and easy-to-complete bites. With this, you can achieve your goals without wasting time. It reduces stress and makes unachievable-looking goals easier for the owners. 

What is the important 4 Ds in time management?

Time management categorizes their work into four: Delete, Delegate, Defer & Do. These four are helpful in making sure you are managing your time well. 

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