Any advanced tips on work priority?

[Nesano]

Background

I ask this question because I've been noticing my colonists don't seem very efficient at what they're doing. I have their work priority set to whatever they're passionate about but, for example, my build projects are taking forever to get done despite having 2 master builders and 1 professional.

Main Point

I'm sure I could optimize it better if I looked more-closely at it, but I thought I'd ask the community if there's any best-practice things to know for seasoned veterans that they might not have thought about yet.

[Astasia]

What do you have everything set to? "Do now!" tasks should be on 1 or 2 (firefighting, patient, cut plants), normal tasks should be on 2 or 3 (whatever their main job is), stuff you want them to do on the side or as backup should be on 3 or 4. It goes left to right, so there can be some overlap depending on the the colonist, so your doctor might also be your cook, you could set both to 2 and they would always do doctoring first and cooking second.

Priorities might not be the issue though, keep an eye on them and see why things are going slow, maybe there is a resource bottleneck, or they are just traveling a long way to build. Trying to micro manage schedules with joy and work periods can also slow things down a lot as that will constantly interupt them and cause extra traveling.

[Nesano]

I usualy set burning passion tasks to 2, regular passion tasks to 3, important tasks to 1, and not-so-important-but-might-need-done-anyway tasks to 4. Here's a screenshot of what I've got at the moment:
https://i.imgur.com/ienCjBU.png

[Astasia]

Ya that looks fine. Your issue probably isn't related to priorities.

Edit: Though I would remove cooking from most of them. You should only need one or two cooks, and the rest are just going to cause food poisoning when they get bored.

[Nesano]

Yeah, I guess it is time to set most of them down to 4 despite their regular passion. I suspect it may be taking a long time to build the slate deadfall traps I'm putting at my entryways. 'Could also be a lot of little things holding up the process.

[ambi]

Try the "Job Splitter" mod. It breaks down tasks to even smaller tasks, so you can fine-tune your priorities.

[Nesano]

I use Work Tab, which does that. It's how I make sure my colonists run the brewery before stuff spoils.
https://i.imgur.com/hNlGH1j.png

[CyPunk]

Not a seasoned veteran here, so apologies if you know this all, but if you have not used the "Hand me that Brick" mod, it streamlines construction allot.

Aside from that, I would recommend looking at your base/village layout and see how you can optimize stockpile locations to be close to where they are needed. Then of course also optimize the paths from those stockpiles to the work place. Also create mini-stockpiles for raw materials right next to working places with critical priority. I often put these in shelves so things look better.

I also plan ahead for construction and usually create a temporary important stockpile near the planned construction well in advance... like reallly in advance so it naturally fills up over time without needing to prioritize hauling and all the resources are ready and close when you are ready to build.

Lastly, try not to cue too many projects at once, at least until you really do figure out how to optimize the priorities. I notice having too many things cued tends to make certain pawns (which depends on their specific work priority list rank and what has been cued) constantly divide their attention between tasks.

[Nesano]

I'll try that temporary stockpile thing. I did it to a minor degree (1x1), but that probably wasn't enough.

[xicewindex]

Never underestimate hauling and stockpiles. Temporate stockpiles at the place where your building set at critical for the materials used speeds up building ALOT.
Your pro's don't have to run around to get mats and those useless pawns (or animals if you have hauling trained ones) who can't do anything else have work to do.
Building done, delete the stockpile and make another at the next building project.

[Drunio]

Honestly once you get a bigger base it gets more and more apparent how much time is wasted hauling items. Having tame animals capable of hauling is a massive time saver and a great def. You can always have a useless colonist be your designated hauler as well.

Keep things compact.

Make it so colonist have 2-3 specific duties and do nothing else.

Pausing the game and changing duties depending on what you need is a great way to speed anything up.

Do projects one at a time. Consistently building without doing massive projects is golden.

Again animals that can haul. They are awesome.