Can You Just…? The One-Week Audit That Puts a Price on Small Favours

Every small firm has a version of this moment. You are halfway through a quote, a payroll check or a tricky bit of client work when the phone rings or someone leans round the door. 'Sorry to bother you — can you just…' Twenty minutes later you are back at your desk, the original task has gone cold, and nothing about the interruption will ever appear on a timesheet or an invoice.

That is not a failure of kindness. It is a capacity problem. At Project 168 we tend to look at the week as 168 hours — not as an abstract number, but as the actual container for everything a small team does. Favours are part of that container. The trouble is they are usually invisible until the week runs out and the important work has been squeezed into the gaps.

Why the five-minute favour is rarely five minutes

A quick request is rarely just the task. There is the interruption itself, the mental gear change, the hunt for the right file or answer, and the slow climb back into whatever you were doing. For a sole trader or a small team, that fragmentation is expensive because there is no spare department to absorb it. The same person who answers the query is often the person who does the delivery, the invoicing and the chasing.

None of this means every request is unreasonable. Plenty are genuine, quick and worth doing. The point is to stop guessing. A favour audit gives you a week of evidence instead of a vague feeling that 'things keep coming up'.

Set up a favour log, not a timesheet

For one week, keep a simple shared log. A spreadsheet, a shared note or even a page in the back of a notebook is fine. Do not try to capture every email or every scheduled meeting. Log the unplanned requests: the drop-ins, the 'quick calls', the WhatsApp messages that turn into a job, the internal 'have you got a minute?' moments.

Useful columns include: date and time, who asked, what they asked for, how many minutes it took, whether it was client, internal or supplier, whether it could have waited, and what you dropped to do it. The last column matters. A favour does not cost nothing just because it was small; it costs whatever did not get done instead.

Keep the log light enough that people will actually use it. If it feels like surveillance, it will fail. Frame it as a one-week snapshot: we are trying to see the shape of the week, not catch anyone out.

Turn minutes into a billable-equivalent cost

At the end of the week, add up the minutes. Then translate them into hours. If your firm has a charge-out rate, use it to work out a billable-equivalent figure. Twelve requests at fifteen minutes each is three hours. At £75 an hour, that is £225 of billable-equivalent time. It may not be cash you would definitely have invoiced, but it is a fair way to show what the capacity was worth.

For internal requests, use a sensible hourly cost instead — salary plus employer costs, divided by working hours. The exact number matters less than the pattern. Was most of the time going to one client? One team member? A particular day? Were the requests genuinely urgent, or did they simply arrive loudly?

This is where the audit earns its keep. Small firms often know they are busy, but they cannot see which busyness is worth keeping. A favour log separates the valuable quick win from the slow bleed.

Sort the week into three buckets

Once you have the log, sort each request into one of three buckets: slot, fee or polite no.

Slot is for requests that are reasonable but badly timed. Batch them into a named window — say, a fifteen-minute 'requests' slot after lunch, or a shared team check-in. Tell clients and colleagues when that window is. 'I can take a look at that after 2pm' is often enough. You are not refusing the work; you are refusing the random interruption.

Fee is for requests that have quietly become scope creep. A client asking for 'one small extra' every week is not asking for a favour; they are asking for unpaid work. A simple line helps: 'I can do that, but it sits outside our agreed scope — happy to quote for it.' For smaller items, a fixed-price add-on can work well. The key is to make the boundary visible without making it dramatic.

Polite no is for the requests that are not yours to do, not a good use of your time, or simply not possible this week. Keep it short and useful: 'I am not the right person for that, but X may be able to help.' Or: 'I cannot fit that in before Friday, but I can next week.' A no with a signpost is still a helpful answer.

Make it a team habit, not a policing exercise

If you have a team, review the log together for ten minutes. Look for repeat requests that could become a template, a FAQ page or a clearer process. Look for the person who is absorbing everyone else's small errands. Look for the client whose 'quick questions' are really a second job.

Then choose one change for the following week. Not five. One. Maybe it is a requests window. Maybe it is a scope line in your proposal. Maybe it is a shared answer document for the five questions you answer most often. Small firms do not need a heavyweight system; they need a habit that survives a busy Tuesday.

What the ledger really tells you

A favour audit is not about becoming the firm that says no to everything. It is about seeing the week clearly enough to spend it on purpose. Some favours build goodwill, smooth a relationship or solve a problem faster than any formal process. Those are worth keeping. The ones that quietly eat your capacity, week after week, deserve a decision rather than a shrug.

You have 168 hours. The favour log simply shows you where a few of them went — and gives you a fair basis for deciding where they go next.