You need to calibrate your "optimism factor" as most of the time you'll estimate by the wrong amount. I chalk this up to people being optimists, that is, ignori

You need to calibrate your "optimism factor" as most of the time you'll estimate by the wrong amount. I chalk this up to people being optimists, that is, ignoring a lot of the junk involved in completing a task that they'd rather not do: Meetings, documentation, integration issues, testing and so on. For most people it's around 2-5 but for some as high as 10 to 20. You might feel like an idiot when you tell people "Hm, change the color of the logo to a different shade of green? Six hours." This is probably how long it will take, though, for that so-called "five minute fix".