It's tempting to try and sit down and create a construction schedule for yourself, but the only was you'll have an accurate idea of how long a job will take is by speaking to everyone who will be involved. A schedule created in isolation is unlikely to be worth the paper it's written on, even if you are knowledgeable about the business. Most builds need the services of many specialists, and their opinions and time frames must be counted.

When you're starting your schedule, make a list of all of tasks, from the preliminary to the final steps, and work out what lead times you might need for material delivery. You'll also want to estimate the times needed between specific jobs, such as plastering and painting, and think about which unrelated tasks could be slipped into that time slot, as well as how long each individual job can be expected to take.

Don't forget to do the same for administrative tasks, which will also need to be handled as and when they arise. Leave plenty of time for choosing materials, organising contractors, preparing budgets and producing drawings, as these tasks can really slow down your build if you don't take care of them in a timely fashion.

Once you've correctly ordered all of your tasks and given a sufficient amount of time to each, you need to share your schedule with all of the contractors who are involved. Everyone must agree to the dates listed and you may even want to use parts of the schedule as a basis for contracts.

Of course, there's no point giving everyone a copy of the whole thing, but it can be good to split each area down into a separate schedule. What's more, once the build gets started, you'll find that most field staff draw up their own verbal schedule of what will be completed on any given day, using your schedule as a guideline, but you'll often find that as circumstances change, so must your plan.

Unexpected problems or challenges can arise at any stage of a build and it's at these times that your schedule needs to be flexible. Don't try to quickly fix an issue then rigidly return to a schedule, look for ways around the issue and keep your plan flexible and able to adapt to circumstances as they become clear.

The weather is another unreliable factor that you will need to allow for in your schedule. Luckily, it can be possible to keep going through some of the honest months of the year when you are working on the interior of your building with the help of temporary power and temporary air-cooling services.

By choosing a power generator rental and installing cooling solutions, you can make it possible to get ahead of your schedule even during the hottest month. Mapping out as many details of your build as possible and leaving some budget aside to deal with the unexpected, you can help keep your construction project on schedule.