Have you ever had someone ask you to do something for them, followed by them saying: “It’ll just take one minute!”. How often has that minute turned into an hour? A day? A week?
Hofstadter’s Law
It has happened to me more times than I care to count. Accurately estimating time for tasks & projects is notoriously difficult. We’re terrible at it. And if someone else does it for you, it’s especially likely an underestimation because they want to make it easier for you to comply.
There’s a name for this phenomenon: Hofstadter’s Law. This ‘law’ states that everything takes longer than you expect it to – even if you’re aware of the law. The more complex a task is, the more likely it is to apply – which is another great reason not to take someone else’s time estimate at face value. What may be simple for them, may be a complex endeavor for you. They may have done it a hundred times before, but it may be your first time ever doing it. In effect, by telling you how much time it’ll take, they’re positioning their experience level and assessment of a task on you.
More often than not, there’s no ill intent behind this. However, that doesn’t mean you should accept it either. After losing a lot of time by falling for these promises, I made a commitment to own my time by taking charge of time estimates for tasks, and I’m much better off for it.
Why you should take charge of your own time
So, what can you expect to happen when you stop taking others’ time estimates at face value? Here are 4 benefits I’ve experienced:
- Personal accountability: When you take ownership of how long a task will take, you hold yourself accountable for its completion. You are less likely to make excuses or blame others if things don’t go as planned.
- Time management: When you estimate how long a task will take, you are better able to manage your time and prioritize your work accordingly. You can schedule other tasks around it, and ensure that you have enough time to complete everything without feeling rushed.
- Realistic expectations: By setting your own expectations for how long a task will take, you can ensure that they are realistic and achievable. This can help you avoid the stress and frustration that comes with feeling like you’re constantly falling behind or not meeting deadlines.
- Better communication: If someone else pressures you to complete a task in a certain amount of time, it can create tension and conflict. By taking ownership of your own timeline, you can communicate your needs and limitations more clearly and effectively.
How to take charge of your own time
Okay, now you know why it’s important to take charge of your own time. But how do you do it? There are 2 components to this.
The first is actually setting these boundaries by learning to push back whenever someone dictates a time estimate for a task to you and giving yourself a more generous time estimate instead. This may take some courage, depending on your personality and communication skills. However you approach it, the key is to let the other person understand what’s in it for them by having you dictate your own time. Let’s look back at the 4 benefits and twist them into templates you can use when you’re facing this situation. I’m highlighting what’s in it for them like this. Take these with a grain of salt – every situation is unique, so don’t blindly copy/paste them.
- Personal accountability: “I can’t commit to that timeline at this point. I want to make sure you can count on me as a reliable coworker. Can we agree to <your estimate> instead?”
- Time management: “I’m already working on <other tasks>. I want to make sure those get delivered to you on time, and adding this to the pile means it will probably take longer than <their estimate>. How about <your estimate>?”
- Realistic expectations: “I committed something similar to <other coworker> before and it turned out to take much longer which turned out to be pretty stressful. I can’t deliver my best work to you when I’m stressed, and I’d feel much more comfortable if we could do <your estimate> instead.”
- Better communication: “I feel like this comes with a risk of hurting our working relationship. I wouldn’t want us to start feel bummed whenever we see each other due to handing us these impromptu deadlines all the time. Let’s look at each other’s calendars to come up with a time estimate that works for both of us.
The second component is to actually have a method for assigning & managing your time estimates for tasks. This comes down to effectively using some form of technology to help you out with it, whether that’s on pen & paper or digitally.
One way is to generously block off tasks in a digital calendar like Google’s. This works well for beginners who are getting used to the idea of claiming their time for themselves, because it’s easy to do and because it’s flexible – you can literally drag & drop things around as you start getting the hang of optimizing your schedule.
More advanced productivity enthousiasts may want something more sophisticated. The Google Calendar method works well, but it is separated from a to-do list and does not contain all the other information you may want to associate with a task or project you’ve committed time to. That is why we are building 2080 – your digital productivity assistant that lets you assign start times & due times to tasks with a calendar view, so you know exactly what you’re committing to when, whilst being able to mark it complete and supply additional information to help you do so with ease, all under 1 roof.
