The nine minutes

A thing one of my supervisors said in training, years ago, that I have been thinking about all week: the fifty-minute hour exists so you have nine minutes to put one person down before you pick the next one up. I have been using the nine minutes for notes for about three years. Worked it out today: that is roughly forty-five minutes a week of the thing the structure was designed to protect, spent on admin, every week, for three years. Which is not a scheduling problem, it is a preference, because nobody has ever asked me to write the notes in that gap and I could write them at five. I think I use them because writing notes is still being useful and sitting in a chair for nine minutes is not. Tried it today, once, after the two o'clock. Sat there. Lasted about four minutes and then opened the laptop.