How do I know a neighbourhood is finished?

When every address has been worked at least twice at different hours and the not-homes have stopped converting. One pass is not finished.

Should I work the whole neighbourhood or the best streets?

Whole, then re-work. Predicting the best streets in advance is mostly guessing, and the guesses tend to encode assumptions about income that are unreliable.

How long should one neighbourhood take?

It depends entirely on door density, which varies by more than you would expect between areas that look similar.

Working one neighbourhood properly

Working one neighbourhood properly means covering every address at least once, returning at a different hour to reach the households that were out, and keeping a record precise enough that a second rep could pick it up. Most reps declare an area finished after a single pass, which is when a majority of its value is still untouched.

One pass is a sample, not a coverage

If most doors end with nobody home, a single pass has met a minority of the households. The neighbourhood is not exhausted; it has been sampled once at one hour.

Boundaries need deciding, not assuming

Neighbourhoods do not have edges written on them. Deciding where yours stops, and recording it, is what prevents the slow drift where each session starts slightly further out and the middle never gets finished.

Leave it in a state somebody else could use

Even as a solo rep you are handing the area to yourself in three weeks, and that person will not remember. A record that says which streets are complete and which are half-done is what makes the return trip worth anything.

Common questions

How do I know a neighbourhood is finished?: When every address has been worked at least twice at different hours and the not-homes have stopped converting. One pass is not finished.
Should I work the whole neighbourhood or the best streets?: Whole, then re-work. Predicting the best streets in advance is mostly guessing, and the guesses tend to encode assumptions about income that are unreliable.
How long should one neighbourhood take?: It depends entirely on door density, which varies by more than you would expect between areas that look similar.

More on canvassing

Canvassing as a discipline — planning coverage, working a neighbourhood, and the difference between canvassing and knocking.

All of canvassing