whenever I do a rag clean of a chain, I always do a quick chainring wipe down of the three rings, a quick "rag squeeze" clean of both jockey wheels, derailleur exteriors, and then a "rag floss" of the cassette. Does a great job of all the various parts, including the chain, and all I have to do is bring an old shirt rag with me, and or pick up the invariable clean looking lost shirt at the side of the road at some point so I have another one if the first one gets too grotty.

all that to say is that keeping the drivetrain clean with some elbow, well finger, grease, does a great job and keeps the "eroding gritty gunk" off all the parts that its best not to have the stuff on.

and like with any cleaning, if you do it regularly, its super fast to do. Let the gunk build up and then it takes a lot more time to deal with.