A simple out-of-scope task turned into an expensive headache for Gala Magriñá’s firm, teaching her an important lesson about process.

To butcher a phrase: The road to job site chaos is paved with good intentions. Two years ago, Gala Magriñá was in the thick of a busy summer, one in which projects seemed to stack on top of each other precariously, Jenga-style. “We had three jobs that were in the same stage, which is the worst, because you need to do design drawings, which take two weeks, but you don’t have two weeks for every project,” recalls the Westchester, New York–based designer. “We were moving very quickly.”

Gala Magriñá Courtesy of Gala Magriñá