The ask was simple. A quick five-minute update, nothing elaborate. So naturally I spent three days preparing it properly. Structuring the narrative, refining the slides, making sure every point earned its place in those five minutes.
Then the meeting before ours ran over, as they always do, and my five minutes quietly collapsed into ninety seconds. I compressed three days of prep into a minute and a half on the spot, cutting entire sections in real time while still talking.
Afterward, the feedback: it "felt a little rushed." Yes. It was rushed. By ninety seconds' worth of time, borrowed entirely from the meeting that ran long before mine even started.