Estimations
The restaurant is a five minute drive away.
Let us quickly meet for 30 minutes and make a decision.
That task will require three hours of preparation to execute.
The restaurant is actually 8 minutes away.
You will meet for 37 minutes and likely still not arrive at a decision.
The task will take two hours of casual thinking during your commute, and four hours of preparation.
This estimation gap is not due to incompetence or a lack of integrity.
The gap is indicative of your brain's estimation capacity and influence to bias.
It indicates an overconfidence in your ability to estimate quickly and accurately.
Principles, habits, and routines can help mitigate the impact of this overconfidence.
In a dynamic, fast-paced environment, the only guaranteed solution is to slow down.
If you continually find your days culminating in chaos, reevaluate the confidence you place in your ability to estimate.
Bias has many forms.
Your confidence in estimation is not an exception.
Beware the Ides of Coffee,
-Morning Cup