How big should one canvassing session be?

Small enough to complete in the hours you have. Finishing a small area beats abandoning a large one halfway.

Should I plan the whole week in advance?

Plan the area at that level and the order per session. Week-long routes go stale by Tuesday.

What if I finish early?

Go back over the not-homes at the new hour. That is a better use of the time than starting a fresh area you cannot finish.

How to plan a canvass

Plan a canvass by choosing an area you can actually finish, ordering the streets so you are not doubling back, and deciding in advance what counts as finished. Size it to the session rather than the season: a route longer than your day is a list you abandon halfway, which removes the point of having ordered it.

Size it to the session

The most common planning error is ambition. A plan covering more ground than the hours allow gets abandoned partway, and an abandoned plan leaves worse records than no plan, because the boundary between done and not-done is now somewhere nobody wrote down.

Order matters more than distance on foot

Walking routes are not delivery routes. The cost is the deciding rather than the distance, so an order that removes the question of where to go next beats one that shaves a few metres.

Define finished before you start

Does a not-home count as worked? Does a house you skipped for a dog need revisiting? Deciding at the end, when you are tired and want to be finished, produces a different answer than deciding at the start.

Common questions

How big should one canvassing session be?: Small enough to complete in the hours you have. Finishing a small area beats abandoning a large one halfway.
Should I plan the whole week in advance?: Plan the area at that level and the order per session. Week-long routes go stale by Tuesday.
What if I finish early?: Go back over the not-homes at the new hour. That is a better use of the time than starting a fresh area you cannot finish.

More on canvassing

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

All of canvassing