I remember the day I learned to estimate.
We were in 4th grade computer lab, and the lab teacher was showing us a math game. We clicked through a couple frames and then got to a hard problem. She asked the class who would be the guinea pig. I had already made my mark as the math kid, so everyone volunteered me. The teacher clicked Next.
Within an accuracy of 5, how many fish are in this picture? You have 10 second. Go.
It was a cascade of a-HA! moments for me. I realized, first and foremost, that I didn't have time to count each fish and I needed a different strategy. I then looked at the image and noticed that the fish were distributed pretty evenly; I could mentally divide the screen into a 2x4 grid and could pretty quickly assign 5 fish to each grid. I saw that this wasn't absolutely accurate, but it seemed close enough. I typed in 40. Success! Everyone else (even the teacher) marveled.
"How did you count them so fast?"
"I didn't. I estimated."
The key takeaways positively impact me all the time. The notion of assessing what's needed and when a solution is good enough help me apply the right level of effort/thought to problems and then just move on. The actual strategy of bucketing and being comfortable working with imprecise quantities ties into this. I'm redoing the deck, how many pounds of screws do I need to buy? We're mulching the backyard, how many bags do we need? How much will it cost? I don't need a quote to the cent, just an idea if it's $50 and we should just do it now, or if it's $500 and we should think about other options.
Estimation gives the power to quickly and cheaply assess options and formulate a plan.
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