Whether you economize on minutes, or days, or hours, every economy of time that you practice adds to your available working time. Tackle one problem at a time. You can't cope with all the problems you inherited, or institute all the changes you plan in the first week on your new job, or even in your first year.
Take on one problem at a time and let the rest (with which the department may have lived for years) wait their turn.
Consolidate tasks. If you have several tasks of similar type - order writing, dictation, visits to the executive office, etc. - group them and handle all of one kind at one time. It is usually quicker and easier that way than shifting from work of one kind to work of another.
Conserve the time of subordinates. Their time is your time. Organize it for them as much as possible. Every needless chore they perform, every duplication of effort, is a waste of time that you can find a better use for.
Conserve the time of boss and colleagues. In a sense, their time is your time, too. The amount they can put at your disposal is limited. Don’t fritter it away with discussions about petty things or problems you are quite capable of solving. Do take up with them: constructive ideas, sensible questions, requests for rulings, situations beyond your authority to handle.
Make your deadlines realistic. Assigning deadlines to various tasks helps you and your subordinates to get things done on time. But the deadlines must make sense, or they defeat their own purpose. To demand by "this afternoon without fail" something that requires a full day's time or more is to jeopardize the respect and future cooperation of your staff. Similarly, to allow two days for work that should take a few hours is to imply that you don't know how long the job should take.
Salvage waiting time. Everyone loses a certain amount of time in waiting rooms, on trains and planes, and in similar situations. Some people fret. Others use the opportunity to think constructively about plans and problems. Get the habit of carrying and using a notebook to remind you of things to do that might otherwise slip your mind. Use it also to draft ad ideas, outline letters, plan your next staff meeting.
Organizing Paper Work
The flood of paper work that crosses a buyer's desk can be organized and controlled, so that it takes no more than a fair share of your time.
Incoming mail should be sorted at once. Material destined for the wastebasket should be sent on its way promptly. The less clutter on a desk, the easier it is to lay hands on a needed paper.
Material requiring study or of less than urgent nature should be put aside for later attention.
Material for assistants and others should be routed at once, so that action is not delayed by a log jam on your desk. Any papers that can be disposed of by initialing, or by a brief handwritten notation, should also get on their way promptly.
Consolidate the remaining papers into batches that require similar action. All stock transfer requests, for instance, all price changes, all unfilled orders for follow-up, and so on.
Now, act. Your own desk is cleared. With a folder of well organized papers in hand, you can make your rounds, see people, collect facts, reach decisions, and put wheels in motion.
The Outward Flow of Papers
Much paper work originates at the buyer's desk. If this, too, is organized, time is saved.
Get all the facts before you start the actual writing of orders, writing of reports, dictation, etc. Each time you interrupt yourself to track down a point; you slow yourself down and increase the opportunity for error.
Economize on dictation. Avoid using a letter if a brief memo will do. Outline any difficult letters before starting to dictate. Develop and use previously established form paragraphs for situations that repeat frequently.
When you dictate, enunciate clearly and spell out names and technical terms. The questions your typist has to ask, and the letters she has to do over, waste your time as well as hers.
Reports and Summaries
Stores supply their buyers with many reports; they also require buyers to make many. Make sure you understand the purpose and content of the information that comes to you and also of that which is required from you.
Question any reports that:
- are not clear to you
- appear to have outlived their usefulness
- are timed too early or too late for use
- provide information more readily obtainable from other sources
- require undue amounts of time to prepare in relation to the insights they provide.
Organizing Your Staff
One of the most valuable assets entrusted to you by your management is the staff assigned to work with you. These are the people who help you earn your salary, your success, your promotion.
In assigning responsibilities, there are basic, tested principles to apply:
- Be clear. People should know exactly what you want done, how you want it done, when you want it done, and to whom to report. Compare: "Please straighten that stock" with "Please go through those racks and make sure the dresses are in the proper sections for their sizes. If you see any that look soiled or damaged, take them out and show them to Miss X. You can hang them on this peg until she has a chance to inspect them. If you start now, you can probably finish by 10:30, when customers will be needing help."
- Utilize strengths. Assign tasks so that you take full advantage of individual skills and talents among your staff. Be alert to skills that complement your own - to people who are quick at jobs you find laborious and slow.
- Check, praise, correct, encourage. When you assign a new responsibility, invest time in coaching and supervision at first. Later, you will be able to delegate similar tasks to the same person with minimum supervision.
- Manage their time as you would your own. Knowing from your own experience how interruptions waste time, try to avoid calling people away from their tasks, or asking them to drop one activity and turn to another, unless it is really necessary.
