Most tradies plan the week in their head, and by Tuesday it has fallen apart. A job runs over, a supplier is late, and three clients are waiting on a call. A simple weekly routine won’t stop surprises, but it makes them much easier to handle.
Set aside planning time
Pick one regular time each week to plan, such as Friday afternoon or Sunday evening. Thirty minutes is usually enough.
In that time:
- List every job that is booked, waiting or close to starting
- Check what materials need ordering and when they will arrive
- Check which subbies or helpers you need, and when
- Look at the weather forecast for outdoor work
- Block out the week
Be honest about how long jobs take
Most schedules fail because jobs are booked too tight.
- Look back at what similar jobs really took, not what you hoped
- Add travel time, including getting materials
- Add time for setting up, cleaning up and packing the van
- Allow for the client chat at the start and end of each visit
If you track your hours, this gets easier every month. See job costing.
Build in a buffer
Leave some space in every week. A simple rule is to only book about four days of work in a five-day week. The spare time catches:
- Jobs that run over
- Call-backs and small fixes
- Quotes and site visits
- Admin, invoicing and ordering
If nothing goes wrong, use the spare time to get ahead. It almost always gets used.
Group jobs by area
Driving across town twice a day eats hours. Where you can:
- Book jobs in the same area on the same day
- Do quotes and site visits on the way to or from jobs
- Pick up materials on the way, not as a special trip
Plan around other people
Your schedule depends on suppliers, subbies, inspectors and the client.
- Confirm deliveries a day or two before you need them
- Confirm subbies and inspections a few days ahead, then again the day before
- Plan outdoor work around the weather, with an indoor job ready as a backup
- Make sure the client knows when you are coming and what they need to do, like clearing a room or keeping pets in
See how to cut no-shows and late cancellations.
Keep it in one place
A schedule only works if it is somewhere you will look. That might be a whiteboard in the shed, a paper diary or an app. What matters is that everything is in one place, not split across your head, texts and scraps of paper. A booking app like TradeFlow can hold the jobs, send clients reminders and show the week at a glance on your phone.
When things change
They will. When a job runs over:
- Tell the next client as early as possible, not when you are already late
- Offer a new time straight away
- Move the rest of the week once, properly, rather than patching it day by day
Clients are usually fine with a change if they hear about it early.
A simple example
On Friday you look at next week. You have a bathroom strip-out on Monday and Tuesday, a deck repair on Wednesday, and two quotes to do. The forecast shows rain on Wednesday, so you swap the deck to Thursday and do the quotes on Wednesday, both in the same suburb. You leave Friday mostly free for catch-up and invoicing. On Monday the strip-out finds rot, which takes an extra half day. Because Friday was free, nothing else has to move.
Quick checklist
- One regular planning time each week
- Real job lengths, plus travel and clean-up
- Only book about four days in five
- Group jobs by area
- Confirm materials, subbies and inspections ahead
- Weather backup plan
- Everything in one place
- Tell clients early when things change
This guide is general information only. Every business is different, so adjust the routine to suit your trade, your team and your clients.