The morning session finishes at eleven, and the next client is booked at half past. The diary shows no overlap. It does not show packing equipment, leaving the building, travelling or preparing the next room.
An on-site appointment schedule should include the work required between client sessions. Treat travel, handover and setup assumptions as part of the commitment, with a practical response when the earlier session changes.
Photo by Seungmin Yoon on Unsplash.
Build a time bridge between appointments
Start from the real finish condition for the first session. Does it include packing, recording the outcome and returning access or equipment? Then identify travel, arrival requirements and preparation needed before the next service can begin.
Use current local information when estimating a real journey. Do not copy a fixed travel allowance across every route or describe a map estimate as a guaranteed arrival time.
An illustrative calculation
Assume a session starts at 10:00 and lasts 60 minutes. Packing and a short handover need 15 minutes, travel is provisionally estimated at 30 minutes and setup at the next site needs 15 minutes. Under those invented assumptions, the earliest ready-to-start point is 12:00, before any additional uncertainty allowance.
The arithmetic helps expose a collision. It does not establish the real travel time, appropriate contingency or acceptable client promise. Verify those conditions for the actual job.
An appointment time-bridge record
First session's accepted finish and release conditions.
Packing, handover or record completion required.
Route and current travel assumption.
Arrival, access and preparation conditions at the next site.
Specialist or equipment dependency.
Uncertainty the owner chooses to protect against.
Next feasible commitment and decision authority.
Update route if a condition changes.
Keep the relevant people and resources together in the calculation. The visitor being available does not help if the kit or required room cannot reach the site.
Agree what happens when the first visit overruns
Identify who may limit the remaining work, arrange cover or change the next commitment. Use your capacity-reserve decision to consider plausible disruption, rather than selling every apparent gap.
If a late finish makes the next promise doubtful, notify the responsible owner while useful options remain. The decision-rights agreement should make clear who can renegotiate a client time and what must be recorded.
Review the assumptions after actual visits
Compare planned and observed packing, travel and setup. Label exceptional conditions rather than forcing one average to explain every job. Useful feedback improves the next estimate without pretending uncertainty has disappeared.
If on-site schedules repeatedly depend on impossible gaps, Hili Consulting can help make the between-appointment work visible before the diary is committed.
