Fred Follies 1

Fred’s Follies: The Executive Who Didn’t Have Fifteen Minutes

At 8:03 a.m., Fred found his executive standing in the kitchen, holding a phone, a laptop, and an empty coffee mug.

The coffee was on the counter.

The milk was in the cupboard.

It was going to be that sort of day.

“Busy?” asked Fred.

“Absolutely buried. I don’t have fifteen minutes to think.”

Fred, who had been thinking quite comfortably for the past fifteen minutes, picked up a notebook.

“Right,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”

By 8:30, they were writing an email.

The executive typed a sentence. Deleted it. Typed it again with “Furthermore” at the beginning.

Fred watched.

“What does this person need to know?”

“That the report is late, I need it by Thursday, and they should tell me today if there’s a problem.”

“Excellent. You appear to have just written the email.”

“Yes, but it needs to sound professional.”

Twenty-three minutes later, the email contained “pursuant to our previous correspondence.”

Fred quietly drew a small gravestone in his notebook.

Here lie twenty-three minutes. They had potential.

At 9:00, they joined a meeting about preparing for another meeting.

“What decision are we making?” Fred whispered.

“Shhh.”

Forty minutes later, someone said, “Perhaps we should take this offline.”

Fred looked around the room.

He had several suggestions about what else they could take offline.

At 10:15, the executive began searching for a document.

“It was definitely in this folder.”

It wasn’t.

“Possibly in Downloads.”

It wasn’t.

“Maybe someone emailed it.”

They had.

Three weeks ago.

Under the subject line “Quick thing.”

Fred turned to a fresh page.

“Don’t,” said the executive.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Your ears are being judgmental.”

By lunchtime, the executive had answered seventeen messages, attended two meetings, opened thirty-one browser tabs, and moved the same task to tomorrow for the fourth consecutive day.

“How’s the important proposal coming along?” Fred asked.

“I haven’t touched it. People keep interrupting.”

A notification chimed.

The executive reached for the phone.

Fred looked at the phone.

Then at the executive.

Then back at the phone.

“Oh, all right,” said the executive, placing it facedown.

They ate lunch at the desk, which mostly involved dropping crumbs into the keyboard while replying to an email marked URGENT.

It concerned next month’s meeting refreshments.

At 2:00, the executive started turning rough meeting notes into an action list.

Fred climbed onto the chair beside them.

“Could an approved AI tool help organize those?”

“Possibly. But I’d have to explain what I wanted.”

“You’ve spent ten minutes deciding whether the heading should say ‘Next Steps’ or ‘Actions.’”

The executive gave him a look.

Fred smiled the patient smile of a fox with very little to lose.

They removed confidential details and asked the tool to organize the notes into actions, owners, deadlines, and questions needing clarification.

Then they checked the result against the original notes.

One deadline was wrong. One action needed a clearer owner. Both were corrected.

“Well,” said the executive. “That was useful.”

Fred made a small, satisfied tick.

At 3:00, they tried again.

This time, the executive asked for a concise email draft using three clear points. They reviewed it, changed a phrase that didn’t sound like them, and sent it.

No “pursuant” appeared anywhere.

Fred considered this a considerable breakthrough.

At 4:00, they finally opened the proposal.

“What do you need to finish today?” Fred asked.

“The opening section and the cost assumptions.”

“What can wait?”

The executive studied the task list.

Quite a lot, as it turned out.

They blocked thirty minutes, closed the inbox, silenced notifications, and began.

Fred settled on the windowsill, his tail hanging over the edge.

For once, he had nothing to write down.

At 5:12, the executive leaned back.

“I actually got something important done.”

“You did.”

“I still have a lot left.”

“You do.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to start with the proposal before I open my email.”

Fred’s ears lifted.

“And perhaps we could look at a few more ways AI could help?”

Fred closed his notebook.

“I thought you didn’t have fifteen minutes.”

The executive reached for the coffee mug.

The coffee, made at 8:03 that morning, was still on the kitchen counter.

Some improvements would have to wait until tomorrow.

Fred’s thought for the day

Before you ask where your day went, notice what you handed it to.

Choose one task this week that regularly swallows your time. Give an approved AI tool a clear instruction, protect confidential information, and check its work. Or reclaim a little space by closing the inbox long enough to finish something that matters.

You don’t have to repair your whole working day at once. Start with one small escape.

For more practical ways to put AI to work, explore LG3’s Where Did My Day Go? AI as Your Productivity Planner. Enter code 15More at checkout to access the course free.

Learn it. Grow it. Own it.