Running several small projects at once without dropping one
At 19:40 a client calls to ask whether anyone is running her bathroom renovation: nobody has been there since last Wednesday. You have five jobs, two lead hands and one truck. Hers was the quiet one, so it was the one you had stopped looking at.
Run them from one page and a fixed week: a Monday review of every job on a single sheet, site visits on set days, and one list of the decisions all the jobs are waiting for, sorted by date. The job that gets dropped is rarely the difficult one. It is the quiet one, because attention goes to whoever calls, and a job with a patient client and a capable lead hand can drift for a week before anyone notices.
The weekly routine
- Ask each lead hand for three lines and a few photos by Friday at 15:00: done, planned next week, and holding the job up.
- Fill one page on Monday morning, one row per job: this week's work, the next inspection or delivery, what the job is waiting for, money to bill or collect, and a status.
- Fix two visit days and route them by the work: inspections, first days and work about to be covered come first, and every job gets a weekly visit — see the weekly site walk.
- Keep one decisions list for all the jobs, sorted by the date each answer is needed, with who must give it.
- Give each lead hand a spending limit and a rule for when to call, so small questions are settled on site.
- Check the page before you promise a start date, so two jobs do not start or finish in the same week.
Common mistakes
- Visiting whichever client called last, while a quiet job drifts.
- Keeping each job's status in your head and your text messages.
- Keeping a separate list for each job, so tomorrow's decision on job four is buried.
- Agreeing a new client's start date on the phone before looking at the other jobs.
Action list
Set up this week
- Text each lead hand the three-line Friday format
- Make the page: one row per job
- Block your two visit days in the calendar
- Move every open decision into one dated list
- Write down each lead hand's spending limit
- Tell each client which day you visit
Check your understanding
One client calls daily and wants you on site each morning; another has not called in two weeks. How do you plan next week's visits?
