When “This Won’t Take Much Time” Quietly Rewrites Your Workday
Professionals often underestimate task duration, a phenomenon known as optimism bias, leading to unexpected delays. This occurs when individuals have a superficial understanding of a task or are overly confident, failing to account for surroundin...
“This won’t take much time” is a phrase you might have heard at work, which does not normally raise any alarms. A person looks at a task for a brief moment and determines that it will not take a lot of time. The sentence itself is presented in a casual manner, almost as a reassurance, but what follows is a completely different experience. The task stretches on, and what was supposed to be a small addition to something ends up taking a disproportionate amount of time.
This particular scenario seems to occur a lot within work environments, where time is not necessarily calculated as much as it is assumed. The sentence itself does not have to do with accuracy in particular, as much as it does with setting expectations, even if it does not make sense.
The general population underestimates the amount of time required for a task, which is commonly known as optimism bias. This behavior is repeated by professionals despite past experiences, according to research cited in the project management literature, including studies done by PlanRadar (2023). It is not always a matter of negligence because sometimes, it is a matter of knowing the task at a superficial level.
Sometimes the problem lies in the fact that the individual is too confident, according to research done by Vabro on the estimation of time (2022). What is not estimated is not the task itself, but the environment surrounding the task. However, for the individual carrying out the task, the experience is different because the task is simple but the process is not. The individual begins to realize the actual scope, which is when tension starts to develop. The expectation has been set, yet the individual has to make the shift internally.
Image Credit: Gemini Some make the shift by doing the task at a faster pace, some by extending the duration of their work, and some by delaying other responsibilities. This does not remain a singular occurrence. It begins to affect the approach to the task, according research indicated in the Inloox article on project timelines (2021).
Individuals begin to make the same statement, yet they start to realize that the task is not as simple as they thought. They begin to realize that the words are not what they seem. But the words do not completely disappear from the conversation; rather, they take on a different meaning. They become less literal and represent a larger understanding, and time is negotiated once the work has begun, rather than before.
