* break it into elementary steps, small enough to fit into your "estimation time unit", e.g. days or hours.
* estimate those steps for "developing at a leisurely pace" if nothing goes wrong.
* think about "what could go wrong" (list everything!) and adjust values accordingly.
* adjust total amount with experience values, like:
* times 1.2 for every manager
* times 1 to 4 based on which legacy projects i have to touch

and finally:
* multiply with `1+log(t/u,2)`, with `u` being the amount of useful data in the requirement description and `t` being the total amount of data in the requirement description
* sample: with our current "favourite" customer, about 90% of all tickets is garbage, so t/u = 100/10 = 10 => log(10,2) = 3.3 => multiply everything with 4.3

analysing a database problem and writing a 4-line fix: 5 minutes.

preparing a foolproof manual for the manager on how to apply the fix: 15 minutes

writing a manager-level explanation what the fix does: 30 minutes.

explaining it to the manager: 30 minutes.

writing a _detailled_ explanation why we need the fix: 60 minutes.

explaining it to the manager again: 30 minutes.

figuring out why our progress is slow:

_priceless_

a "landing page", that was just any and all features of the application forced into one huge, unbearably slow, indeniably confusing page.

which took months of work. which i said beforehand "nobody will use it". which now, through the magic of user tracking, is proven to be used by nobody.

is "drunk coding" really a thing? i can't imagine how.

i prefer working code, so when i'm writing code, i need my brain to be working. the "benefits" of alcohol, like reducing social inhibitions, don't benefit source code.

customer: "hey, feature X is broken!"

me: *asks for details

customer, one week later: "feature X contains information about Y, that *must not* be"

me: *looks at code, at git-history, at related tickets

customer, one year ago: "hey, feature X *must* contain information about Y"

me, all the time: :-|

here's a shoutout to 90% of websites today:

NO, I DO NOT WANT YOUR F*CKING NEWSLETTER! STOP ASKING!

NO, I DO NOT WANT YOUR F*CKING NOTIFICATION! STOP ASKING!

NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SHARE MY F*CKING LOCATION! STOP ASKING!

NO, I DO NOT WANT ANY F*CKING COOKIES! STOP ASKING!

website publishers ary whining about adblockers, but keep shoving so much shit down our throats that even a dozen browser addons can't make the web usable. the internet was such a great place once, where did we go wrong?

(rhetorical question. it's when we made access to the internet so easy, that every 100% tech-illiterate idiot could get online.)