Almost everything in life is a balance between the over/under. You seldom hit the mark exactly; rather, you’ll have too much of this or too little of that.
You’re focusing on making a million dollars? It’s very unlikely you’ll make precisely a million dollars. It’s much more likely you’ll do so great you’ll make a few million, or your strategy and luck will be so wildly off, you’ll make a fraction of that. But unlikely you’ll make a million dollars, and near-impossible that you make precisely 1,000,000.00 exactly to the cent.
One way in which it’s impossible to estimate a precise amount of time is when you’re estimating how much or how little time it will take to do some work. Either, it will be much faster or much slower. And the latter is much more common than the former.
Knowing this, it’s important to bake time margins into everything you do. A good rule of thumb is to assume everything takes 25% more than your best, reasonable guess.
It’s important that when you do your best, reasonable guess, you don’t factor in this 25% time margin. That comes later.
Two warnings.
First, it’s really like that if it takes more time, it takes much more time, so that 25% won’t cut it. If you’re off, you’re really off. This is why the other processes suggested here—communicate openly while doing it, ask questions, keep the team updated as to your progress, etc.—are key. There isn’t much you can do about that other than be prepared. And of course, there are always force majeure moments where the best planning in the world can’t account for outside events unless you have a glimpse into the events that are to happen. This is why it is important to prepare for unexpected events in proportion to the likelihood and severity, taken together, of the events happening.
Secondly, if you deliver early, then don’t just hang out and spend that extra 25%. Then your boss or client will think you’re slow! Instead, deliver it when you finish, and then move to less urgent work on the list. In other words, just estimate on the conservative side, but deliver on the schedule of when you actually finish.
