I haven’t run into a problem like that are you able to repeat that event multiple times? If so you should report it as a bug.
As for the task priority I haven’t had much trouble managing event for example if I’m building something but I need food harvested right away the harvest then loot command will normally handle that issue.
there are a few times it would come in handy like if you had a building started but you needed to move to making a wall right away it would be nice to be able to bump its priority.
I’d also like to see a way to prioritize stock piles for example if i want food at a far location for its source id like to be able to tell them fill this stock pile first before the others so the far reaches of my city or outpost have what they need with out traveling far to get it.
so over all I agree its something i’d like to see in the game one day but that’s more likely a late game feature.
Just another idea of mine…
I don´t know if there´s just a way until now… but is it possible to set priority to a job which should be done first?
so my Problem is the following… just got many things to do…
got a town with…
… 8 workers (yeah :D)
… 1 carpenter (lvl 6)
… 1 blacksmith (lvl 3)
… 2 farmers (lvl 3-4)
… 1 mason (lvl 4)
… 1 weaver (lvl 2)
… 1 Trapper (new one - lvl 1)
… 5 footman (lvl 3-4)
… over 7k net worth
… over 6k food
and with a rate 9.6 / 4…
now i´ve got many to do for all of them… but sometimes they won´t do the really needful and nessecary things… like getting the harvest Wood from the ground into my storage… or just picking up ores… or just reorganize my storages…
Just wanna ask if u know a way to set priority on different jobs…
thx for ur help 
greatings
maDDin546
P.S.: just post my little town in few hours 
maybe also on my website - I don´t know let´s have a look… ^^
you can use the loot command, do this by pressing shift+L and it prioritizes lootable items such as ingots, wood, etc. but as for tasks such as reorganizing storage, i would recommend removing the stockpile and then once everything there has been moved, making a new one the same size but click on the check marks. i wish there was a way where you could designate items to certain stockpiles (i.e. carpenters items only go to a certain stockpile and masons items only go to a certain other stockpile, etc.
i think there´s a way to do that…more or less… u can modify your storage so that only one sort of ressources get there… e.g. one storage 20x20 only for Wood
or another one only for Gold… etc
yeah, but sometimes i want something more specific xD…beggars can’t be choosers i guess haha
There is no way to prioritise tasks yet (the game has automatic priorities set). A Task Manager tool is planned. I expect it will be a major feature when it arrives.
Yeah as i said just a question, maybe a better feature for the future
I also know it´s “jusT” the Alpha of the game so let´s wait a bit maybe there some new changes soon which implement such features ^^
But also i´ve seen that if u force ur hearthlings to do something with double clicking on building houses or something like that… they´ll leave their actual work and start doing the other stuff… but as u said there´s no way to order or to prioritise their tasks yet ^^
Moved the discussion over here!
i dont know if this is brought up before , but i think it would be nice to implement function where we can manually prioritize task of each hearthling
We really need to be able to set high priority tasks. I have tons of loot in my current game that my hearthlings won’t pick up unless there is literally nothing else to do, because it is so far away. Also, not to spoil too much but, in the campaign where you make the wind chimes, they would not place the wind chimes for the longest time even though they were constructed and ready to go. This is important because I would ave been overrun by bad guys waaaay before they placed it had not said bad guys been stuck in an area they couldn’t get to me from. Also several times I might want a ladder constructed so I could reach a stuck hearthling or send my troops after some baddies to level up and it wouldn’t be constructed.
Currently watching hearthlings starve because the little idiots won’t prioritize the 3 farms full of food and instead keep moving rocks. Tried setting hauling off but for some reason that also turns off harvesting for farmers, which makes less than no sense. I feel like that’s either oversight or bug. A very annoying bug.
To add on, Rimworld don’t just have “interrupts”, characters can have assigned priorities to different job types as well (disabled being one case).