Setting priorities when everything on site is urgent
By 6:50 on Tuesday the phone has rung four times. The steel erector arrives at 8:00 and cannot set the level 5 beams until the engineer answers a question on the revised connections, the owner's representative wants to walk the lobby at 9:00, and a labourer reports that the cover over a floor opening on level 3 has been moved. A glazing truck is idling at the wrong gate.
When everything arrives at once, the order you deal with it in is usually set by whoever calls first or loudest. That order is rarely right: a hazard waits behind a phone call, and a small delay to the work that sets the finish date gets less attention than a loud request that could wait a day. A fixed order of questions makes the sort fast, and easy to explain afterwards.
Sort in this order
- Write everything down first: two minutes, one list, including what is only in your head.
- People first. Anything that could hurt someone today gets action now: stop the work, make it safe or assign someone who will, and report it the way your safety program requires.
- Critical path second. Next come items that hold up the chain of tasks that must finish on time for the job to finish on time — see the critical path in plain language.
- Money third. Then anything that costs money while it waits: equipment or crews booked by the hour, a delivery that will leave, a notice deadline in the contract.
- Delegate, schedule or decline the rest, and tell each person when they will hear back.
- Re-sort at midday: new demands go on the list, not straight into your day.
Common mistakes
- Dealing with items in the order the phone rings.
- Letting the most senior voice set the order without saying what it will displace.
- Doing everything yourself instead of assigning what someone else can do.
- Deferring a request without telling the person when you will get back to them.
Action list
Tomorrow morning
- List everything before acting on anything
- Ask of each item: could this hurt someone today?
- Then: does this hold up the critical path?
- Then: does this cost money while it waits?
- Give everything else a name and a time
- Re-sort the list at midday
Check your understanding
The owner's representative wants a walk-through at 9:00, the time you booked with the engineer to settle the steel question. Which do you keep, and what do you tell the owner?
