The intern asked the same onboarding question three times, and each answer lives in a different thread. You stare at the latest ping, fingers hovering over the reply box, because you know if you type the walkthrough for setting up the shared drive again you’ll zone out mid-sentence. The half-empty cold coffee sweats on the edge of your desk, and the calendar alert for your team check-in pops up 10 minutes early. You don’t have 5 minutes to rewrite the answer right now, but you can carve out the time later to never do it again.
Count the time you win by cutting redundant answers
Every time you type the same answer for the second, third, or tenth time, you’re giving away time you could spend on the work that actually moves the needle for you. You don’t have to track every reply to see the impact: Example measurement: 4 repeat questions a week, 3 minutes spent per answer, adds up to 52 minutes of recovered time per month, no extra effort required once you build the note. These questions usually land in Slack DMs, email replies, or quick check-in calls, so you barely notice how much time they eat until you stop to count. You don’t need to catalog every possible question anyone could ever ask you, just the ones you find yourself answering on repeat, week after week. You’ll still get odd, one-off questions that require custom answers, but those are the ones that are worth your time to write, not the repeat walkthroughs everyone needs on their first week, or the expense report rules that live in a buried folder no one checks.
Use this 20-minute block to draft your core FAQ skeleton
You don’t need any new tools to build this note. Open the same note-taking app you already use for personal reference — the one you have pinned to your taskbar, or the open tab you flip to when you need to jot down a meeting reminder. Create a new blank note, title it “My Personal FAQ” and leave it open in the background while you finish your other tasks for the day, so you can pop back to it when you have a free minute. The skeleton only has 8 slots total, so you won’t get stuck building an overly long document no one will ever read, including you. You don’t need to share this note with anyone unless you want to — it’s for your personal use first, so you can format it however makes sense for you, no approval required. You don’t have to fill all 8 slots today. You just need to map the structure so you can drop answers in as you go, without having to rearrange the note every time you add a new entry. If you only have 5 minutes right now, you can set up the structure and fill in the first answer, then come back to the rest later when you have more time.
Fill the slots with the questions you type most often
You can fill the slots as you go, but to get started, think back on the last 7 days and pull the 3 questions you answered more than once first. Use this table to organize each entry, so you don’t have to guess what information to include for each answer:
| Slot number | Question you get weekly | Draft of your answer | Link to existing full resource if applicable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illustrative example: How do I request access to the client design folder? | Illustrative example: Go to the shared drive root, open the “Access Request” form, select “Client Design Folders” from the dropdown, tag your manager for approval, you’ll get an email confirmation within 2 hours. | Illustrative example: https://link-to-your-shared-drive-access-form |
| 2 | Illustrative example: What’s the cutoff for submitting expense reports? | Illustrative example: All expenses for the current month must be submitted by the last business day of the month, with receipts attached for purchases over $25. | Illustrative example: https://link-to-expense-report-template |
| 3 | Illustrative example: Who do I ping for IT support for company laptops? | Illustrative example: Message the #it-support Slack channel, include your laptop model and a screenshot of the error, response time is usually under 1 hour during business hours. | Illustrative example: https://link-to-it-support-ticketing-page |
| 4 | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] |
| 5 | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] |
| 6 | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] |
| 7 | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] |
| 8 | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] | [Leave blank for now] |
Fill in the first 3 rows right now with the questions you answered most this week, using the exact wording you’d use in a reply to a teammate, no formal jargon required. If there’s an existing guide, form, or document that goes with the answer, drop the link in the last column so you don’t have to dig for it when someone asks. You don’t have to write long answers: keep each one to 2 sentences max, so they’re easy to scan and copy-paste when you need them. If the answer requires more detail, you can write the short version in the table and link to the full resource for anyone who needs extra context.
Pin your most frequently asked answer to the top of the note
Before you close the note, pick the one question you get more than any other, and paste its answer at the very top of the note, above the table. This is the answer you type so often you could recite it in your sleep: it might be the link to the weekly team meeting agenda, the walkthrough for resetting your project management tool password, or the instructions for booking a conference room for client calls. If you don’t have a clear top question right now, pick the one you answered twice already this week, that’s the one to pin. Right now, copy that answer and send it to the intern who pinged you earlier, so you can mark that task off your to-do list without typing a single new sentence. You don’t have to do anything else to the note right now if you don’t have time: this one pinned answer will save you more time in the next week than filling all 8 slots today. If you have a spare minute, you can bookmark the note in your browser, pin it to the top of your note list, or save the link to your Slack bookmarks so you can pull it up in 2 seconds when someone asks you a question.
Update the FAQ with one new question this coming Friday
Every Friday, 5 minutes before you log off for the week, take 60 seconds to think back on the questions you answered that week. If you answered the same question more than once, add it to the next open slot in your FAQ table. You only need to add one question per week, so you won’t spend extra time maintaining the note, and you’ll fill all 8 slots in just over a month. Once all 8 slots are full, you can either add more rows to the table, or archive old questions that no longer come up as your team or role changes. If you work with a team, you can share the note with new hires when they start, so they have all the answers to their most common questions before they even have to ask. When someone sends you a question that’s already in the FAQ, you can copy the relevant line from the note or send the link to the full note, so you don’t have to retype the answer ever again. You don’t have to overthink this: the goal is to save you time, not create a perfect document that you spend hours updating every week. If you find a question that stops coming up regularly, you can delete it or move it to the bottom of the note to make space for new, more relevant entries. Find Core Insight has pre-filled templates for common role types if you want to jumpstart your list, but you don’t need them to get started with the skeleton you built today.