As a Senior PM the first thing that I check or have on a daily to do basis to manage my project is...all status of ongoing activities and the look ahead items that were pending some response. This can be via phone, email or system messages.
All items that are outside my project but to which my project has a dependency...those are the ones I eyeball extremely closely so that lag time, if any, does not get eaten up. I also check for the people factor - illness, hospital trips, other absence factors and how it impacts today and rest of the week activities.