AI tools were supposed to free up our time—but they’re increasing our cognitive load and making us less productive. Here’s what’s really happening (and how to use them without burning out).
The unquestioned mantra of AI "freeing workers to spend time on strategy" has always rubbed me the wrong way. In a large business, how many people set the strategy in any meaningful way? It's not that large of a percentage. Most workers will simply be doing other tasks, likely much more mundane tasks, like fact-checking and editing the output of GenAI tools.
The idea of “cognitive debt” really stayed with me. Saving time doesn’t mean much if it costs more mental energy to manage what’s been created. It also feels honest to name how quickly “efficiency” turns into just more volume instead of more space. This gave me permission to question whether a tool is actually helping me think better or just keeping me busier. That distinction feels like the part we’ve been skipping.
This is really hitting home a thing I re-leared about getting more "margin" in our life (there's a fabulous book by that same name if you look). We put all this tech into making things more productive to save time, but with that savings we cram more into it which increases our stress instead of giving us room to breathe.
I do have to give some pause and rethink the cognitive tax angle. I hadn't thought about that as much. We do have some AI code review and dipping toes into AI code writing on small stories, but is the time spending to correct things worth it. Plus, I need to somewhat know the thing I'm reviewing in the first place so sometimes I'm double taxing if I don't trust the AI. Will need to check that. Thank you!
The unquestioned mantra of AI "freeing workers to spend time on strategy" has always rubbed me the wrong way. In a large business, how many people set the strategy in any meaningful way? It's not that large of a percentage. Most workers will simply be doing other tasks, likely much more mundane tasks, like fact-checking and editing the output of GenAI tools.
The idea of “cognitive debt” really stayed with me. Saving time doesn’t mean much if it costs more mental energy to manage what’s been created. It also feels honest to name how quickly “efficiency” turns into just more volume instead of more space. This gave me permission to question whether a tool is actually helping me think better or just keeping me busier. That distinction feels like the part we’ve been skipping.
This is really hitting home a thing I re-leared about getting more "margin" in our life (there's a fabulous book by that same name if you look). We put all this tech into making things more productive to save time, but with that savings we cram more into it which increases our stress instead of giving us room to breathe.
I do have to give some pause and rethink the cognitive tax angle. I hadn't thought about that as much. We do have some AI code review and dipping toes into AI code writing on small stories, but is the time spending to correct things worth it. Plus, I need to somewhat know the thing I'm reviewing in the first place so sometimes I'm double taxing if I don't trust the AI. Will need to check that. Thank you!