Long Commutes encourage laziness?

Optimization is extremely hard. Consider how this game works. You (the player) order a list of tasks, which are assigned to dupes based on dupes' preferences. From a dupe's perspective, he receives a list of errands and he is going execute the list. Inevitably, there will be lots of inefficiency. For examples:

1. Dupe A building something at Point A, and travels to Point B (thousands miles away) to building something, and then returns all the way back to Point A to build more things. 
2. Dupe A is working at Point A, the player add a near-by order (like toggling a switch at point A). The funny thing is that someone else, Dupe B, that is far away from point A, will receive the order while dupe A could have done it right away.

The priority overlay (for the player) and dupes preference are two major tools of optimization, but there are limitations. This is hard!

• We think a dupe should complete his duty at some location before moving to another place, but this could be problematic because no one will respond to an emergency happening somewhere else then.
• We will significantly improve the colony's efficiency if we could assign errands to every single dupe directly. But this is also bad because it gives the player tons of work. 

The player's careful planning could help a bit, but the dupes will need to be able to "think ahead" and "act rationally" one day to really make a difference. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Jackie1213

In the priorities tab, there's an option to enable proximity. This will make duplicants prioritize closer errands. This has definitely helped me, but it's far from perfect