As a largely solo dev I found I can't estimate well unless it's a common task, and it's easy to find tasks grow exponentially if it touches too many layers.
Asking "how long do you want me to spend on this?" got better results, because I got more idea how important tasks were to the business and can usually tell if something is going to take longer than they want. (Or know when we need to discuss scoping it back, or just abandoning the feature)
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