If I have a project that needs doing on a specific deadline, I start thinking about all of the types of complications I might face and what sort of obstacles there might be. What if I can’t find this thing? What if this component breaks? What if I get sick and I can’t do it on this day? I keep thinking of things that would make it take longer, and padding out the time estimate.

If I truly believe something will take four hours, I will talk myself out of it and say “no, something will go wrong, nothing ever goes perfectly smoothly, you don’t even have your tools/resources together, that estimate is wildly optimistic” and then I’ll double the estimate to eight hours. Then, if everything goes smoothly, it maybe takes me five or six total hours and I can get it to a decent point I’m not embarrassed of. Maybe I planned on doing that eight hours of work over two days, and ended up finishing it on the first day. I’m not going to pretend it’s foolproof but it honestly has helped me a lot