[AlexC04]

Surely you're getting the sense of the patterns of things you're doing.

Maybe something like "that's probably 3 loops and an email"

That's a couple hours for the loops... A couple more for the email, assuming HTML has to be dynamic based on a model with 5 values... Etc...

Sure it's not identical every time, but the patterns are the same.

[rpwilcox]

Sure, sometimes. Between that, the story point ideal of "... relative to other tasks completed in the project", and a long enough term project, things may start to look the same _in that project_.

It also depends on how much leeway your estimates can have: if it turns out to be waaaay more than two loops and an email, what happens? Does management just nod, or do they start "negotiations" about not paying for the work it took you over the "estimate"?