My effort estimates were primarily based on project milestones, task segmentation, and familiarity with the work. I began by breaking larger tasks, such as designing a page, into smaller, more manageable components. For example, I would first design the front end of the page, then implement its features, and finally connect it to the back-end database. Throughout the project, I found that my actual effort often exceeded my initial estimates. This was largely due to the additional complexity involved in connecting to the database and integrating pages through links and shared functionality.
Although my estimates were not as accurate as I had anticipated, creating them in advance helped me better manage my time and prioritize tasks. Estimation allowed me to identify which tasks needed immediate attention and which could be postponed. For instance, in my project RateMyTools, I needed to design the school page. I initially estimated this task would take approximately 120 minutes. But after two hours of work, the visual design was complete, but several features remained unimplemented. Recognizing that I had other high-priority tasks, I set this task aside and shifted my focus to more critical components of the project.
Tracking actual effort was somewhat useful, helping me learn what took me the longest, and how I can speed-up the process via tools. For example, planning and designing the school page all manually by myself would have taken me multiple hours. However, by using tools such as Figma to design an initial design, it lessened my time from hours to just minutes. Essentially, tracking actual effort was useful for the fact that it helped me learn how to use tools to manage my time and effort more efficiently, thus making my future project decisions much more efficient.
For my actual effort, I hadn’t really tracked it too precisely. For the most part, I looked at the time when beginning the task, up until when I had finished working on it. Although my tracking was for sure not 100% accurate, I believe it was still representative of how much time I had spent on the task.
Through this process, I gained a better understanding of my strengths, weaknesses, and the tools available to help me solve problems more effectively. As a result, my estimation and planning skills have improved significantly. In the future, I would use a timer to track time spent on individual tasks more accurately and break tasks into smaller, more defined segments. For example, instead of listing a single task such as “Design Navbar,” I would include subgoals such as login and signup functionality, visual enhancements, link placement, and logo design. Additionally, I would consider experimenting with AI-assisted tracking by outlining required tasks and using AI to estimate completion times and identify missing subgoals.