I recently completed my first major woodworking project: a new outdoor dining table.
Aside from a major staining mishap (too orange!), the project went well, with one glaring exception:
It took way longer than promised.
I followed the plans outlined by a DIY website—even paying a couple bucks for them!—based on the premise that it would be a “single-day” project.
I should have known better.
When experts build projects, they never stop to wonder about how much glue they need, or whether to shake the can of stain before opening it up. (Um, shake the stain!)
All that head-scratching adds up for amateurs like me. But besides the moments of wondering and double-checking and general confusion, there’s also the simple divide between amateur and expert: they execute a lot faster and more efficiently than me.
My wife complains about this with food recipes. Too many recipes are “20-minute” or “30-minute” recipes, a timing premised on the outright omission of required time (in the oven or required prep) or, more usually, on the failure to account for how long it would take a non-professional cook who has never cooked the meal before.
It’s the planning fallacy, of course. In general, it’s just hard to know how long something will take to complete. But It’s even harder to know how long something will take someone else.
Taylor Coe 