In partnership with
How long does it take you to respond to your emails in the morning? Roughly, I mean.
What about scheduling your newsletter? Or scrolling LinkedIn while telling yourself it's "research"?
I ask this question to nearly every client I coach and to our members during office hours. And every single time, I see the same reaction:
Sheer bloody panic. I get it. Because I used to be the same.
I'm somebody who gets very lost in deep work — especially the stuff I love. Editing videos. Writing copy. Refining a course module until it's just right.
I had no idea how long any of it actually took me.
Until I had a baby - also known as Her Royal Highness.
There's nothing quite like nap time to make you brutally aware of how long tasks actually take. Because suddenly, you've got a hard deadline.
Not the "soft deadline" you set for yourself that slides by three hours. A proper, non-negotiable one: Royal Highness wakes up in 90 minutes.
And that's when I realised: what I thought took me "just a few minutes" was actually taking me forever.
That quick edit? Thirty minutes, minimum. That "quick" caption? Fifteen minutes if I was lucky, more like twenty-five if I got distracted by choosing the right emoji (it matters, okay?).
Having a set amount of time to work before the chaos resumed taught me more about my actual working patterns than any productivity course ever did.
From wild guessing to massively underestimating, most of us have absolutely no clue how long our recurring tasks actually take.
The Planning Fallacy Is Real
Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified something called the planning fallacy — the idea that we chronically underestimate how long it takes us to complete tasks.
That one email you thought would take five minutes?
It took twenty. And now you're late for your next meeting.
The social media graphic that was "quick to make"? An hour later you're still tweaking the colours.
The "quick call" that was meant to be 15 minutes? Somehow it's been 45 and you haven't even gotten to your actual point yet.
If any of these resonates you are constantly underestimating time, and if you're constantly underestimating time, you're constantly playing catch-up. And that creates a ripple effect.
Stress, my dear old friend.
Burnout, my bestie.
Rushed decisions.
Plans that live neatly in my notes app.
This is about building a business that works for you, instead of running yourself into the ground trying to match someone else's version of hustle.
Introducing the first AI-native CRM
Connect your email, and you’ll instantly get a CRM with enriched customer insights and a platform that grows with your business.
With AI at the core, Attio lets you:
Prospect and route leads with research agents
Get real-time insights during customer calls
Build powerful automations for your complex workflows
Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.
Why Founders and Freelancers Get Hit Hardest
If you're a solo founder, creative, or small team leader, your time is literally your currency.
And when we default to a to-do list that assumes everything takes 15 minutes, we're setting ourselves up for:
Scattered, inconsistent messaging
Half-finished launches that never quite land
Missed windows for growth because we're always firefighting
Terrible decision-making based on faulty assumptions
And here it comes, my mic drop moment: most of us weren't taught to understand or honour our own rhythms.
We were taught to match someone else's. To work like someone with a full team, a virtual assistant, and no caring responsibilities.
To plan like someone who doesn't have ADHD, anxiety, or chronic fatigue. To execute like someone whose brain works in neat, predictable time blocks.
But that's not most of us.
YOUR HOMEWORK ✍️
Here's a powerful (and dead simple) exercise to help you reclaim your time, based on your actual rhythms — not what productivity TikTok told you.
Pick one day this week. Ideally without back-to-back meetings or major commitments.
Then, for each task you do:
1. Before you start → write down how long you think it will take.
2. Do the task → don't rush, just work normally.
3. After the task → write down:
How long it actually took
How you felt (drained, energised, focused, like you wanted to throw your laptop out the window?)
Keep it simple. Checking email. Scheduling content. Writing copy. Recording a video. Even taking a break.
Bonus tip: Use a Pomodoro app or even just a timer on your phone to track time blocks without overthinking it.
At the end of the day, compare notes.
Where were you way off? What surprised you? What tasks consistently took more (or less) than you expected?
You'll start to see:
What tasks drain you vs what gives you energy
How long recurring tasks really take (not how long you wish they'd take)
When your focus is actually highest during the day
Where you're underestimating or overcommitting
And once you have that intel you can delegate smarter. Batch more efficiently. Set deadlines that actually feel doable.
You can build a business that respects your actual energy — not just your ambition.
This exercise is the first step for you to better design your week around you.
So here's your permission slip to stop guessing and get curious instead.
Set a challenge day
Track your tasks honestly
Notice your patterns
Adjust accordingly
And if you're a team of one or leading a small crew, this is especially important — because no one else is coming to manage your calendar for you.
You have to do it. And you deserve to do it in a way that doesn't leave you knackered by Wednesday.
Most of us were never taught to honour our own rhythms or challenge the hustle myth that says we should just work harder, faster, longer.
That's why I wrote not one, but two books to help you flip the script:
📘 Reclaim Your Time Off — a practical guide to creating boundaries and designing a business that works around your life (not the other way round).
🆕 Customer-Driven Marketing Handbook — learn how to market market smarter and faster using systems and processes that drive results.
Check them both out here → fabgiovanetti.com/books
Always cheering you on,
Fab
GRAB A COPY OF MY NEW BOOK 📖
Fifteen years of marketing experience condensed into one book. The Customer-Driven Marketing Handbook is about building relationships using marketing as your superpower. But also a book about being human in your marketing, regardless of the tools, trends or changes that this crazy world throws at us.