Yesterday I built this blog using Jekyll and Github pages. I followed the tutorial “Build a Blog In Five Minutes”, but it took me more than three hours to do it.

Am I that slow, or am I doing something wrong?

In my defense, I spend most of the time:

  • setting up the project on GitHub;
  • setting up Google Analytics;
  • configuring DNS records;
  • installing Ruby on my laptop;
  • placing a picture of me and polishing it with CSS;
  • writing a message in the footer.

Maybe, if I had everything prepared in advance, I would spend 5 minutes building the blog.

This reminds me of my own mistake:

  • Placing an action button on the page should not take me more than one minute, right?
  • Wrong!!! I usually spend more than five minutes per button.
  • Why? Because I’m forgetting about the time needed to:
    • type the code;
    • find a good icon;
    • adjust margins and padding;
    • polish look with CSS;

Maybe there is a pattern here:

  • when the job is dominantly creative or engaging, we tend to overlook uncreative and grinding work;
  • forcing us to underestimate the time needed to finish the project.

The proper way to estimate the deadline

  1. Give your initial estimate as you usually do;
  2. Deliberately think about all the grinding work that needs to be done, and add time for it;
  3. Multiply everything with 2 or 3 and hope for the best;
  4. As you work, periodically review and adapt the project scope to hit the deadline.