"Spend a little time every day staying organized, and save yourself a lot of frustration in the long run." Jim Strite, Facilitator

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A Super Way to Stay Organized on the Jobsite

You know how things sometimes go haywire on the jobsite when you least expect it? You can virtually eliminate that possibility by having your superintendents plan out their daily and weekly tasks in advance, as the well-organized supers do at Leff Construction.

At the same time each day, Leff Construction’s five superintendents retreat to their jobsite offices, turn off their phones, and spend about 15 minutes completing the Daily Planning Form, a single-page form in Excel format with the following three sections:

1. Tasks I want to accomplish tomorrow.
2. Subs who have been confirmed for tomorrow.
3. Materials and tools needed for tomorrow and that are on site.

Each of the supers also completes a Weekly Planning Form, which they use to plan ahead beyond the next day to anticipate the materials, tools, subs, and manpower needs that must be confirmed in order to be included on future daily planning forms. The beauty of the system is that a task cannot be entered on the daily planning form until everything is in place to complete the task.

The supers keep the completed forms in their respective project binders, which stay with them until the job is completed and then are returned to the office. They’ve been using the plan-ahead system for about 6 months, and it’s already paid off.

“With their tasks planned out in advance, they can very quickly share the detailed work plan for the day with the other crew members and get started right away,” says David Leff, owner and CEO of the Sebastopol, Calif.-based design/build firm. “When used together, the two planning forms help reduce the number of ‘emergency’ trips to the lumberyard. The daily planning form breaks the job down into bite-sized pieces so that the details can be considered and problems anticipated more easily.”

You can use this system, too, whether you have superintendents or lead carpenters running your jobs. “It will take a little training and getting used to,” says Leff, “but my supers say that it allows them to be much more relaxed on the job.” 

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