I don't think vegan food prep takes significantly more time than other food prep from raw sources, at least on average over a varied diet, though I guess "becoming vegan" might be the impetus for a lot of people to start making their own food for the first time.
My wife and I tag-team the parts we hate most (I don't like working with dough, but she hates steaming it) and we end up with enough for a week to cook into actual recipes without too much headache, but I can't just buy a protein ready to go like I used to be able to.
But beans and legumes are very little work and store for ages, etc. Quinoa and the like too, easy/ Depending where you live you may have good sources of fresh tofu & seitan, etc.
If you are looking for "same meal, but X instead of chicken" it's more work, granted. That's hardly the only option though, and learning a range of dishes from traditionally vegetarian or near vegetarian cuisines can help generate a list of easy & tasty alternatives.
The provenance of the chicken is going to be much more important than whether is broken down at a factory, by the butcher, or at home.
On the other hand, if you just ate food that was naturally vegan, like lentils and rice. You would do just fine, and it is actually much easier to cook than chicken, since you don't need to worry about contamination, etc.
I also didn't really specify, but there's times we cook with nutrition and health as the main factors, and times we cook for indulgence or for cravings, and I definitely blurred the line some in my original response.
Some meat dishes can take all day to prepare. Some can be knocked out in 15 minutes.
To counter, I can make a vegan soup in a pressure cooker in 5% of the time to make a meat pie from scratch.
It was meant to be one example, we cook bean and lentil dishes a hefty majority of the time and usually those I can set and forget in an instant pot.
