Tools Shouldn’t Work for Us
They should work with us
It's that time of the year again—yearly planning, setting goals, and setting up new tools and systems to crush your year. There are thousands of newsletters, blog posts, and YouTube videos telling you how to do all of those things. I am not going to do any of that. Today, I want to talk about setting real expectations of your tools. Simply put—don't expect the tool to do the work for you, even if it can.
We are deep into the text-driven AI revolution. We all know it, and most of us have found a way to have AI do some work for us. The problem is that AI—and more broadly, automations—make us feel like our tools should be doing the work for us, rather than with us.
Most of us know the promise of the original computer systems—they were built to augment our minds. They were supposed to do the heavier lifting and the busy work. I have written about augmenting our minds in the past, but this was framed around a second brain. I am still all about this, but the topic needs a different perspective, as our expectancy of technology is evolving quickly.
Working for us
There is a meme that has been around for a few years now. I don't know the original source, but this is a version.
The image depicts an exaggerated perspective of tooling when paired with different IQ scores over a bell curve. In short, if your IQ is low, you use a simple tool (like Apple Notes), and if your IQ is high, you use a simple tool (like Apple Notes). But if you fall in the middle, you use complicated, robust tools, like Obsidian, Notion, etc. While I don't agree with the IQ depiction, I do agree with the depiction of tooling.
I have worked with dozens of clients and hundreds of people who start with basic tooling like a todo list, spreadsheet, or a Google Doc—but then try complicated systems to optimize their productivity. In the end, most of them just go back to their original system or tool of choice.
This happens because they think a tool will unlock a new level of productivity. This is a false assumption; it never will. I see this more than ever with the rise of AI. People use generative AI meeting notes, task planning, scheduling, etc. They think the busy work of doing those things is slowing them down or making them inefficient. But this is untrue. Like I mentioned in this edition, embracing friction allows you to truly learn and grow.
Working with us
We need to refocus our expectations of tools. Rather than expecting them to be your assistant, expect them to be your pen. They are the car's chassis, but you are the engine. I've seen some pretty common situations that can easily be refocused.
People love using AI meeting assistants. These assistants join calls with or for you, record the meeting, then capture notes and action items. Some of these tools can even be integrated with other tools, so they end up creating a doc and sending it to participants. Most people start using these assistants so they can be more present on calls. They claim that they are focusing on the call, rather than the notes. But in reality, this allows them to fuck about. They check email, send texts, do "admin" work. An easy way to counter this is to take meeting notes by hand. It allows you to be more engaged, as you are not switching tools or screens, and it gets you off the keyboard, so you are not tempted to engage in something else.
People also love using AI tools to plan their week or schedule their meetings. While this sounds nice, it never works well and never can if you also prioritize a personal life. If you sit at a desk 12-15 hours a day and rarely leave your house, this is another issue entirely. A better way to manage your calendar and tasks is with some simple planning and methodologies.
For your calendar, if you can, declare specific days for work-related meetings. Then pair this with a scheduling tool like cal.com to handle the scheduling itself. While a tool like this is doing the scheduling work for you, you have some human-set constraints for things in your personal life. By doing this, if you forget to block time on your calendar for focused work or meeting up with a friend, you don't have to cancel or shift things around.
As for your tasks, simply set hard limits and plan. I personally have found that I can only handle 1-3 core tasks a day. The exceptions are recurring admin tasks. For the core tasks, these should be thought out and added to your calendar at the end of the previous week. Spend 15 minutes doing this on a Friday, setting up your week for success. The recurring tasks can be done in a bulk admin session. I like to put this at the end of my day, as the cognitive load is generally very small.
You might be thinking, admin tasks should be automated. While they can be, I don't recommend it for most tasks. Most automations, like most AI tools, require more maintenance than they are worth. There are a lot of dependencies and intricacies for most admin tasks—logins, API keys, redirects, etc. These things require a lot of upkeep, while doing them by hand does not.
The promise of AI was like the promise of original computers, but now our expectations have changed. While AI can be useful and automations can speed up workflows, most of the time they are more harm than good. Going back to that image, the reason why most people use a simple note-taking tool, rather than a complicated one, is because it is dependable. It does what you expect, with minimal bells or whistles. It gets out of your way so you can do what you need it for. So, this year, rather than selecting your next flashy tool, try to use the dependable human-powered option. This will allow your tools to work with you, rather than for you. This shift will empower you to slow down, focus, and think deeper.