Burnout is on the rise again, with an ironic twist.
Conventional wisdom is that burnout is caused (solely) by overwork.
So logically, if AI can help us complete tasks 2-100x faster than before, we should be UNDERWORKED and experiencing ZERO burnout, right?
If only it were that simple.
ALL THE THINGS! #
You may be too young to recognize this meme, but it’s the feeling most people in tech had when AI started accelerating their efficiency.
Why?
Because for years, all of us had dozens, if not hundreds, of side projects we could have started but had to shelve because there weren’t enough hours in a day.
Then AI came along and teased us with a seductive lie…
Claude: “But, maybe you can do it all now that I’m here!”
For the past decade, I’ve been a repeat startup founder + new dad + always ambitious person. I had over 100 article titles + outlines in draft. I had a someday maybe list full of 50 projects to start “when I had the time.” I started to dip my toe in the water and YOLO some of these side projects between meetings. Queuing up Claude in 5-minute increments and then letting it rip before jumping to the next call.
The crazy thing is it started to work…
Things I wanted to try, explore, and write about were working, and this only 10X’d my ambition to start more projects! Spin more plates. ALL THE THINGS!
The Crash #
You already know how this ends.
Because it always ends this way.
There’s the quote: “You can have anything in life, but not everything.”
Even when AI can 100x your productivity on a single task, we humans still have a finite number of seconds in a day.
And we’re not machines. We’re not meant to operate at 100% speed every waking hour.
What happened was I started to notice I had something like 40 “proof of concept” projects going on, and I was starting to feel that pang of burnout growing inside me. Each project was a new open loop, a new responsibility, and a new thing to tend to.
I used AI to reduce my required work, so I invented an endless amount of make-work.
Make Work: “work assigned or done chiefly to keep one busy”
Don’t get me wrong, I had fun along the way. But this is a failed strategy I had to course correct.
Less, But Better #
In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown beats the drum about doing less, but better.
I think this is critical in an age of AI.
Rather than using AI to expand the number of things you’re doing (horizontal), I have come to realize the best strategy is to go way farther on the things that matter (vertical).
In short, focus and follow through.
Personal Examples #
I didn’t intend to write this article this morning, but I had to to stop myself.
I had another one titled “Sesame Street Simple” (coming soon) that I was trying to rush out the door. However, as I kept sitting with that article, I realized I wasn’t giving it my very best. Maybe it was a solid B/B-, but the topic deserves an A+ effort to have the impact I want it to make.
So I stopped.
And I decided to give it at least 2-3 more revisions with focused time and attention.
Partial vs Total Eclipse #
Am I being a perfectionist?
An overdramatic artisan?
I don’t think so.
Garry Tan penned an amazing article about the difference between a partial and a total eclipse.
The main thrust? You think the difference between a 99% and a 100% eclipse is a mere 1%, a rounding error. But visually, it’s a 100x difference. A partial eclipse feels like the dimming of a cloud. A full eclipse is like an eerie nighttime befalling the world.
The experiences could not be more different in effect.
Likewise, things that we love (products, books, movies, etc.) pay the price of that last 1% to deliver that 100% experience.
Here’s the hard part. That last 1% may feel like 50-90% of the total time, which is why so many people just say “good enough” and ship.
The Better Way Forward #
Now that AI makes things 2-100x more efficient, there’s no reason not to pay the price of that last 1%.
The only way to do that is to be ruthlessly focused and then follow through on the few open projects that matter.
I’m still making lots of mistakes because it’s so hard not to chase the shiny (ALL THE THINGS), but the rewards are worth it.
To that end, I hope to publish fewer articles, but go deeper on each one.
You and I both deserve that.
And no one should be experiencing burnout in the age of AI. The entire point was to offload all the hard labor so we could be save time, focus on what matters, and be more human.