This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Predicting the time needed to complete a project, task or daily activity
can be difficult and people frequently underestimate how long an
activity will take. This book sheds light on why and when this happens,
what we should do to avoid it and how to give more realistic time
predictions. It describes methods for predicting time usage in
situations with high uncertainty, explains why two plus two is usually
more than four in time prediction contexts, reports on research on time
prediction biases, and summarizes the evidence in support of different
time prediction methods and principles. Based on a comprehensive review
of the research, it is the first book summarizing what we know about
judgment-based time predictions.
Large parts of the book are directed toward people wishing to achieve
better time predictions in their professional life, such as project
managers, graphic designers, architects, engineers, film producers,
consultants, software developers, or anyone else in need of realistic
time usage predictions. It is also of benefit to those with a general
interest in judgment and decision-making or those who want to improve
their ability to predict and plan ahead in daily life.