“It’ll just take 5 minutes”

It won’t, because clicking and typing isn’t the hard part or the long part. It’s the thought that comes before the clicking and typing. For example, say you have to reschedule a new event; you’ll look around for a new schedule and time in your calendar, write up an apology, consider if that person really wants to talk, and processing your own feelings—all of that is the time consuming part. It’s worth having someone else take care of the scheduling for you instead, if only because it helps you depersonalize, and keeps you from identifying much with your work.

Secondly, even if it does take 5 minutes (it won’t!), a full 8-hour workday with no meetings is composed of 95 increments of 5 minutes. That means you can only do 95 of these small 5 minute tasks, even if you had absolutely no meetings, inbound communication, etc.

It’s just not feasible.

Train someone else, even if it takes them 10 minutes, because it’ll save you 5 minutes. Make sure that you don’t do things for them. Confirmation should take less than 1 minute, until you build trust, and then it’ll take you 0 minutes.

Think about it.

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