  The Fokker--Planck equation is a key ingredient of many models in physics,
and related subjects, and arises in a diverse array of settings. Analytical
solutions are limited to special cases, and resorting to numerical simulation
is often the only route available; in high dimensions, or for parametric
studies, this can become unwieldy. Using asymptotic techniques, that draw upon
the known Ornstein--Uhlenbeck (OU) case, we consider a mean-reverting system
and obtain its representation as a product of terms, representing short-term,
long-term, and medium-term behaviour. A further reduction yields a simple
explicit formula, both intuitive in terms of its physical origin and fast to
evaluate. We illustrate a breadth of cases, some of which are `far' from the OU
model, such as double-well potentials, and even then, perhaps surprisingly, the
approximation still gives very good results when compared with numerical
simulations. Both one- and two-dimensional examples are considered.
