Productivity
Task Time Calculator
Estimate the total time a list of similar tasks will take, including time lost switching between them.
How the calculation works
Multiplies the number of tasks by the time each one takes to get pure task time, then adds a context-switching penalty for every transition between tasks (one fewer transition than the number of tasks, since there's no switch before the first or after the last). Ignoring that switching cost is a common reason time estimates for a list of small tasks come in low.
Formula
Total Time = (Number of Tasks × Time Per Task) + ((Number of Tasks − 1) × Context-Switching Time).
Examples
20 min/task, 10 tasks, 5 min switching
4h 5m total (200m tasks + 45m switching)
45 min/task, 4 tasks, 10 min switching
3h 30m total (180m tasks + 30m switching)