Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM FEBRUARY 2018 40 A couple of months ago, I decided that I was going to finally tackle my poor ability to manage my time. I always seem to make important deadlines and I get to most appointments pretty much on time, but sometimes I feel like I'm running around in circles trying to get to everything. If I'm struggling, independent business owners and their teams must be having a really difficult time meeting the demands of their lives. I'd already identified the obvious time sucks—Internet surfing, Facebook and TV news—and started to be more intentional about going online and watching TV. What I really wanted was a good way to prioritize my "to-do" list. "What is important is seldom urgent," Dwight D. Eisenhower liked to say, "and what is urgent is seldom important." President Eisenhower wasn't spending time updating his apps or surfing the Internet but he had plenty on his plate. He was a master organizer, keeping a tight rein on his time and tasks as a five-star general, commander of Allied Forces in Europe during WWII, and the 34th President of the United States. The Eisenhower Decision Matrix has become a powerful tool and has been refined by many management consultants since its inception. Business thinker Stephen Covey popularized the Eisenhower's Decision Principle in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It looks something like this. All tasks of daily living and business have some kind of urgency and some degree of importance. Determining how urgent and how important things are is the key to successful time management. An article by Brett and Kate McKay posted on The Art of Manliness defines the terms in this way. • Urgent means that a task requires immediate attention. These are the to-do's that shout "Now!" Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode, one marked by a defensive, negative, hurried, and narrowly-focused mindset. • Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals. Sometimes important tasks are also urgent, but typically they're not. When we focus on important activities we operate in a responsive mode, which helps us remain calm, rational, and open to new opportunities. Here are some examples of tasks rated by importance and urgency. • Important and urgent: Tackling a cash crisis in your business, meeting with your team about this weekend's promotion, payroll, your child's soccer game, a crying baby • Important but not urgent: Long range planning, meeting with a vendor, creating a quarterly promotional plan, employee reviews, getting enough exercise, vacation planning, monthly financial review • Not important but urgent: Booking a flight to a meeting, sharing a timely article, answering a phone call, many meetings • Not important and not urgent: Most e-mails, lunch with a favorite rep, watching "Game of Thrones," checking your Facebook Tasks can move up or down the matrix—employee reviews may not be urgent in September but if you haven't completed them by mid- December they are a lot more urgent. Some emails—like special offers from your suppliers--are important and urgent. Now the trick is to prioritize your "to-do" list. Do the things that are urgent and important as soon as they cross your desk. Make sure you schedule time to do the things you deem to be important but not urgent so they do get completed. Tasks that are urgent but not important can perhaps be delegated to someone else. You can put off those things that are neither urgent or important until later—by then you may decide you don't need to do them at all. The old adage "Plan your work and then work your plan" seems to be more important now than ever before. And hey—I just got this column completed way before the deadline. It was urgent and important so I did it first. Now for the rest… Elly Valas is an author, speaker and retail consultant. She can be reached at elly@ellyvalas.com or 303-316-7568. Elly Valas Retail Views RO GETTING IT ALL DONE

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