Can You Have This Done by Next Week?

Getting an accurate estimate of how long a project will take can be an exercise in frustration. The problem is that people are hardwired to be overly optimistic about their own abilities.

Yet people are fairly accurate at predicting how long it will take someone else to complete that same task.

To get an accurate estimate, ask how long they think it will take someone else to complete the task before assigning it.

In Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition, Michael J. Mauboussin shows how behavioral science can teach us to make better decisions. By becoming aware of the flaws in our own intuition, we learn which types of decisions are most dangerous, when to trust gut instincts, when to trust experts, and when it’s wiser to put our faith in statistical analysis.