If you've added AI tools and feel busier than ever, it's not in your head. Researchers followed 200 employees at a tech company for 8 months after AI rollout. Expected: faster work, shorter hours. Found: work became more intense.
One engineer said: "You thought you'd work less. But you didn't. You worked the same or more."
Scott breaks down why this happens at three levels:
Scope Creep: AI gives you superhero capabilities. You take on work you never would have attempted. A friend edited his own video—took 2 hours. "That's the most expensive video your company ever produced. $1,000/hour times two hours equals $2,000."
Work Expansion: The barrier to starting a task dropped to zero. You can start something from your phone during lunch, from your couch at 9pm when your brain should be winding down. Work bleeds everywhere. Scott shares the BlackBerry story: standing at Haunted Mansion in 2008, watching a dad on his device, thinking "I can't wait to get mine." Then learning why they called it a crackberry.
Parallel Overload: Multiple tabs, multiple drafts, multiple workflows. You feel productive, but context switching drains you. The visibility of progress isn't actual progress.
The trap: AI speeds you up. That raises everyone's expectations—including your own. The new pace becomes the baseline. It's the AI grind culture.
Scott introduces AI Debt: the tool creates new capacity, that capacity becomes absorbed into new work, and now you can't run your business without the tool. Combined with building on rented land (Episode 49), you're layering risk on top of intensity.
The fix:
- Decision Pauses: Is this a task or a decision? Tasks → AI or your team. Decisions → you.
- Work Sequencing: One AI-assisted task at a time. Stop treating parallel threads as productivity.
- Human Grounding: Scheduled block with no AI. Whiteboard sessions. Walks. Protect your judgment.
Join the Wednesday Afternoon Off Crew: block it off, go enjoy the freedom your business affords you.
The bottom line: AI doesn't fix a broken process. It amplifies it. If you were overwhelmed before, AI makes you more overwhelmed. The system comes first.
Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask
