What a site diary is, and what it is not
A site diary is one running record per project: dated entries, written at the time, about what happened. Visits, calls that changed something, decisions, delays, deliveries. It is the memory of the job.
It is not a to-do list, and it is not the report you send the client. Reports are often written from the diary, but the diary holds more: the small things that only matter if something goes wrong.
The contractor usually keeps a diary too. Yours records what you, the designer, saw, said and agreed. When the two records match, disagreements end quickly. When they do not, a note written on the day is far easier to rely on than anyone's memory.
What to log
If someone might ask about it in six months, log it. In practice, that means:
- Site visits: the date, who was there and what you saw. The site visit report guide covers these in detail.
- Instructions you gave, and who you gave them to.
- Decisions by the client, with the date they made them.
- Delays and their cause: weather, a late delivery, a missing drawing, a decision still waiting.
- Deliveries and fitting, especially items the client chose.
- Problems found, and the day they were fixed.
- Calls and messages that changed something, in two lines.
- Work that is about to be covered: pipes and cables before boarding, waterproofing before tiling.
What to leave out
- Opinions about people. Write what happened, not what you think of someone.
- Guesses written as facts. “Damp patch on the north wall” is a fact. “Leaking roof” may not be.
- Studio-only matters in entries the client can see. If the client has access, decide entry by entry what is shared, or keep a separate studio note.
- Copies of drawings and long emails. Refer to them instead: “Kitchen plan, revision C, sent to Leo today.”
How often to write
Write an entry for every site visit, and a short one whenever something happens between visits that you may need to show later. A call where the client changes the floor finish deserves two lines on the day, not a vague memory at the end of the job.
On a quiet week, a single line still helps: “No work on site this week, waiting for the windows.” Gaps in a diary raise questions. A line explaining the gap answers them.
If you write an entry later, date it on the day the event happened and say when you wrote it.
What a good entry looks like
Here is a useful entry, written on site in about two minutes:
- Date
- 22 April
- Logged by
- Sam
- Where
- Ground floor, kitchen
- What happened
- Worktops delivered and fitted. The hob cut-out is 20 mm off the drawing. The fitter will adjust it tomorrow.
- Photos
- Wide shot of the kitchen, the hob cut-out with a tape in the frame, the delivery label
- Follow-up
- Check the cut-out on the next visit
Compare it with a weak entry: “Kitchen going OK, some issue with the worktop.” Which worktop? What issue? Who is fixing it? Six months later, nobody can tell.
Entries between visits
The entries people forget are the ones between visits. They are often the ones that matter most, because they record why something changed.
| What happened | What to write |
|---|---|
| A call with the client | “Call with Mia: she wants the oak floor in the hall too. Extra work note to follow.” |
| An instruction to site | “Told Leo to hold the bathroom tiling until the new layout is approved.” |
| A delay | “Windows delayed by the supplier, now due 3 June. Leo told.” |
| A delivery | “Kitchen units delivered, two doors damaged. Photos taken, supplier told.” |
| A drawing sent | “Kitchen layout, revision C, sent to Mia for approval.” |
Two lines each, written on the day. That is all it takes.
Habits that keep a diary going
- Write on site, or in the car before you drive away. Later rarely happens.
- Use the same headings every time, so an entry takes two minutes, not ten.
- Speak the note if typing on site is slow, then tidy it up.
- Keep photos with the entry, not loose in your phone's camera roll.
- Keep one diary per project, shared by the whole studio, not one per person.
- Read the last two entries before each visit. It takes a minute, and you arrive knowing what to check.
Why it matters at handover and after
At handover, the diary shows what was fitted and when, which choices changed, and why a date moved. It makes the handover file quick to put together.
Questions still come after the client moves in: a leak, a crack, a supplier asking when something was installed, a client asking why the job ran late. A complete diary answers in minutes. A patchy one turns each question into a search through old messages.
It also helps you plan the next job. A diary shows how long each stage really took, which is the best guide to how long the next one will take.