How many times have you set out to do something, only to find out it takes much longer than anticipated. Say, driving from Pinellas to Hillsborough when there’s a crash either on Howard Frankland, Courtney Campbell, or Gandy. It sucks. Suddenly, your 40-minute drive turns into an hour and a half.
Same goes for your Tinder date who takes forever to get ready, or your restaurant order on a busy night. So if there can be delays in something as simple as driving, dating, and eating, imagine all the things that could come up while working on a large scale project involving construction or renovations.
When you have so many things to keep track of (site inspections, permitting, obtaining insurance coverage, contract negotiations, surveying, site excavations, HVAC, plumbing, etc…) it’s extremely easy to miscalculate chronological order or to have an issue in one area affect and cause delays in another. It is for this reason that you have to prioritize having efficient scheduling tools before you get started.
How to do effective scheduling
As a whole, a project can seem overwhelming. So start things off by breaking it up into manageable phases. It will seem a lot less staggering and it will help you come up with a more realistic overall schedule to complete the project.
Next, create subheadings for which subcontractor will be responsible for which phase of the project. This is a good way to hold them accountable and keeping everyone on track.
Have checklists for everything. When there are a million things to do, it’s easy to overlook a few steps or a couple of details. And don’t worry about reinventing the wheel. Whatever project you’re working on, there should be a template of a similar one that has already been completed.
Once you have a structured schedule, monitor its progress. This is crucial if you want to be able to foresee possible glitches and delays and plan for them accordingly. Include milestones that you can tick off your list.
Monitor your budget. The last thing you need is to realize midway through that you blew your available funds on something else. This would be the equivalent of begging for a lawsuit.
You can find software that will help you keep track of all of these tasks and assist you in keeping your project organized. Just keep in mind that even with the most efficient of tools, you still need an actual human to review everything to make sure it’s all running smoothly. If you’re ready to get the party started, go for it. But if you’re still hesitant because all of this is going over your head, don’t lose any sleep over it. Give us a call. At Eclipse Building Corp., all of this comes as second nature to us. Let us help you.