18th October 2021

We never leave ourselves enough time to do things, do we…
Today, I want to talk to you about being as realistic as possible when thinking about how long a task or project is going to take you. This comes from my own continuing personal experiences, as I am often guilty of not being realistic about time estimates for doing things (although I promise that I have been trying to improve on this day by day and week by week for many years!)
We often very carefully plan out things that we want to do time-wise, but we still then find that things overrun on us a lot of the time and then also impact upon each other, so that eventually we run out of time to do everything that we had planned to do? People also call this ‘The Domino Effect’, as it is similar to a game of dominoes, where one domino impacts on another as it goes down, which then impacts on the next one and so on
In fact, ‘The Domino Effect‘ also works between one person and another person doing consecutive tasks in a project. For example, if the first person does not leave themselves enough time to do their task, which needs doing before the second person can do what they have to do, when the first person is not realistic about how long their task is going to take them and then overruns, they will end up impacting upon the second person doing their task.
So, even if the second person has actually left themselves enough time to do their task theoretically, they then are put under pressure and the whole project may run out of time practically, because the time that the second person had set to do their task has now been shortened because of the first person’s unrealistic time estimation about doing their own task.
I am a big believer in ‘Time Blocking’, where you first specifically (as best that you can) determine the task that you need to do and then put corresponding time in your diary to do it. I usually try to be as realistic as possible, by not only estimating and allocating the time that I think that something is going to take me, but then double it! (Some people say that you should also double that again!!)
The other thing to do is to always have or even write a plan. Be careful though, as you should not only write a plan, but you should then stick to that plan! And remember, things do not always go to the way that you planned them to go, so you always need to be prepared to expect and then adapt to new obstacles that present themselves as you go along. I heard someone once say that: “Plans are essential, but planning is useless!”, which I think is a wonderful way of putting it. But you at least need to have a plan from the start of any task or project.
Curiously also, when you feel that you are running out of time, you will feel more stressed and probably will then not do as good a job, whereas when you leave yourself more than enough time to do a task and finish it earlier than you had planned to do, not only do you then have time left over, you then feel less stressed and often do a better job too!
So this week, if you find yourself running out of time to do things, even though you thought that you had planned for them to be done in a certain space of time, step back and think about what I have said. You may also be surprised at how much more you can actually do when you are genuinely realistic about your time estimates.




