Time Estimate Calibrator
Paste tasks you have already finished — name, the minutes you estimated, the minutes it actually took — and see the ratio between the two, task by task, plus the single multiplier that describes the middle of them. Time estimates running short is an extremely common thing to notice in yourself, and the practical answer is usually not to guess harder: it is to learn your own multiplier and book accordingly. If your middle ratio is 1.80, a thirty minute estimate is a fifty-four minute booking, and the rest of the day stops falling over. The tool prints a booking table for 15, 30, 60 and 120 minute estimates, shows the spread so you can tell a consistent offset from a wildly variable one, and — if you tag your lines — gives a separate multiplier per kind of work, which is usually where the useful contrast lives. There is no rating, no ranking and no history: it reports a ratio the way a tape measure reports a length. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
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Worked example
Inputs
- Close-to-estimate band
±10% / ±25% / ±50% - Per-tag breakdown
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Frequently asked
How do I type the lines?
One finished task per line: name, estimated minutes, actual minutes, and an optional tag. Commas, pipes, semicolons and tabs all work as separators, so "Write report, 60, 90, writing" and "Write report | 60 | 90 | writing" are the same line. Minutes can be written as 45, 45m, 1h, 1h30 or 1.5h. If a task name has a comma in it, use pipes for the columns.
Why the median rather than the average?
Because one task that ran ten times its estimate would otherwise define your whole multiplier. The median is the middle value once the ratios are lined up, so a single unusual task moves it barely at all, while it drags the mean a long way. Both numbers are printed — when they disagree, the gap itself is telling you that one or two tasks are unlike the rest.
What if I do not have the actual time for a task?
Leave the column off and the line is excluded from the multiplier and listed back to you with its line number. Nothing is estimated, interpolated or filled in on your behalf — a multiplier built partly on invented numbers would tell you less than no multiplier at all. An estimate of zero minutes is reported as unusable for the same reason: there is no ratio to take, and the tool will not print a made-up one.
Does it keep count of anything?
No. It keeps no history between visits, counts nothing over time, ranks nothing and produces no rating of any kind. It takes numbers you already have and divides one by the other. What it is for is deciding how much room to book in a calendar, which is a planning question — not a verdict on you or on the work.
How many tasks do I need before the number means anything?
The output says how many it used, and under about ten it says plainly that this is a first impression rather than a pattern. With a handful of lines the middle value jumps around a lot. Twenty ordinary tasks logged across a couple of weeks gives a much steadier figure than five picked from memory.
Does this have anything to do with ADHD?
It makes no claim about anybody's diagnosis and is not a screening or an assessment of any kind. Time estimates running short is something a great many people notice in themselves, with or without any diagnosis, and a personal multiplier is simply a practical response to it. It sits beside the Task & Focus Planner, which deliberately never compares an estimate to reality — this is the separate, opt-in piece for people who want that comparison.