Site diary best practice: what to log and how
A good site diary wins disputes, supports claims, and tells the story of the job. Here is what to log every single day.
Site diary best practice: what to log and how
A site diary is not paperwork. It is the contemporaneous record that wins disputes, supports extension-of-time claims, and gives you the truth of what happened on day 147 when the client asks in month 9.
The non-negotiables
Every day, log:
- Weather — temperature, conditions, anything that stopped work
- Who was on site — by company, by trade, by headcount
- What work was done — by area, by package
- Deliveries received — with times
- Inspections and sign-offs
- Delays, stoppages, instructions received
- Visitors — client, design team, HSE
- Incidents and near-misses
The format that works
- One entry per day. Not one per week.
- Written the same day, not Friday for the whole week.
- Time-stamped where it matters (delays, instructions, incidents).
- Photos attached to the entries they describe.
What to write in "delays"
Be specific. "Rain stopped work" is useless. "Heavy rain from 10:45 — concrete pour on level 3 paused for 2h 15m, restarted 13:00, 4 operatives stood down" is evidence.
Why digital beats paper
Paper diaries go missing. Get rained on. Get rewritten months later. A digital diary with timestamps and photos is contemporaneous evidence in a way a paper book never quite is.
The discipline
The site agent writes it. Same time every day — 15 minutes before leaving site. Skip a day, and the discipline cracks for the whole job.