It takes my guys almost an hour to do a flight from HEF - CHO which is a very short flight. I sometimes wonder "what the hell are they doing that is taking so long?" but then I have to remember that I can tell you where CHO is when we are only 1000' in the air off of HEF, since I go there all the time. When you first start out it will take awhile, then you will get good at it, then you will realize the online planners that take seconds. Then you go onto IFR training and you dont have to plan much
Then youll go back to commercial training and have to re-remember how to do a VFR flight plan and feel really stupid
-Rob