Time management is important when it comes to school, but it’s something I often did unconsciously without giving it much thought. During this course, and especially through this extra credit assignment, I had to be more intentional about how I spent my time. I paid closer attention to the estimated effort versus the actual number of minutes I dedicated to the project.
I didn’t rely on any special tools, just a straightforward method of writting down rough start and end times, either in GitHub or in my personal notes. I focused on tracking time during dedicated work sessions, especially for more involved tasks. While the tracking wasn’t perfectly precise, it gave me a solid enough picture to understand my work habits and improve how I manage my time.
Recording time gave me feedback. I started to notice which kinds of tasks I underestimated (like learning new tools or debugging) and which I overestimated (usually when I expected integration issues that never came).
This helped me improve how I go about doing future work. It wasn’t about speed, it was about understanding how I worked and where I could grow.
Even when estimates weren’t accurate and many times they weren’t, they still had value. They encouraged forward thinking. I had to define what “done” looked like and think critically about how to get there. It also created better alignment within our team.
When someone estimated a task would take two hours and I thought it would take much longer, that difference opened up valuable discussion. It wasn’t about being right, it was about surfacing assumptions and syncing up our strategies.
I think so. Tracking time wasn’t a huge burden once it became a routine part of our milestone check-ins. Spending a few extra minutes to record effort made me more intentional with how I spent my time.
Even when I forgot to track in real time and had to recall it after the fact, the reflection itself was helpful. It grounded my understanding of what took time and why.
In the early stages of the project, my estimates were largely gut feelings. I’d ask myself something like, “If everything goes smoothly, how long might this take?” But as the project evolved, I started getting more detailed.
I learned to break issues into subtasks and account for things like debugging, unfamiliar frameworks, or waiting on teammates. That shift helped me avoid unrealistic expectations and gave me better control over planning.
This experience taught me that effort estimation and tracking is more than a course requirement, it’s a tool for thinking. It gave structure to my work and made me a more reflective, organized developer.
I definitely plan to continue using this approach in the future, whether I’m working on another software project or managing time in any collaborative setting.