A disc drive with a control processor programmed with an execution time dependent command schedule optimization method to effect data throughput with a host device. The disc drive includes a head disc assembly executing commands scheduled by the control processor. The control processor selects and schedules a next optimum command from among commands analyzed by the control processor during a time the head disc assembly is executing a current command. The steps utilized by the control processor to select and schedule the next optimum command include executing a first command with the head disc assembly, determining a computation time for a second command, storing the computation time as a computation time estimate, and using the stored computation time estimate to determine the number of commands in a command queue for analysis to provide a level of command schedule optimization commensurate with the available time.