Every day I have a list of things to do that is longer than the day. Part of that is because I have a handful of projects all going at once that I need to move forward on. The other part of it is that I’ve always been quick at building things and I didn’t feel like time applied to me – it was this imaginary thing that I could bend at my will.
I’m still much quicker than other people’s expectations. I’ll get a project done in a fraction of the average time. But there is a bottom limit on how long something can take that I can’t get past. At that point I have to realize that I can’t squeeze more into a day than there are hours.
This is one of the hardest parts of running multiple projects at the same time, and why padding estimates is common. One project running long can affect every other project. You can easily make up that time if you have slack. Otherwise you move forward one step at a time, pushing a little harder than normal, reminding yourself that this won’t last forever.