More Capable, More Buried
About All This AI Stuff...
I am, by every measurable standard, more capable than I was a year ago. That's not nothing. The AI tools I've folded into my workflow, largely Claude Code and OpenAI, have genuinely expanded what I can accomplish — whole categories of work that I could not have dreamed of asking the first questions of research about, let alone executing, now get done. I find it useful not to inflate this: it's not really me doing the work. It's me prompting something that does the work. But the output lands in my name, on my desk, and I've learned to navigate that distinction without too much philosophical hand-wringing about it. After all, I mean I am the one formulating the informed-enough questions to get the ball rolling; the project wouldn't progress without me.
What I Did Not Anticipate Was the Accounting.
The thing about becoming more capable is that people notice. And when people do notice, they load you up accordingly. I may be five times more productive than I was twelve months ago — and I am, without question, five times busier. That's the kind of math that does not sum to any total in your favor. Somewhere between the tool and the output and the organizing of the input and output files I'm generating, the day disappears. Keeping track of what the AI has helped me produce is, on some days, a full enough job by itself, leaving little time to muse or ideate. It can be an endless loop of iteration, making the next newer version of a thing that wasn't needed until someone had the capability to do it. kinda a Jurassic Park thing — so consumed with whether we could do whatever, we never stopped to consider if we should [ or however the quote is supposed to go...positive Kevin will correct it ;) ]
So Stay Put the Boulders
It's easier to move pebbles. Low-hanging fruit, quick wins, the small tasks that give you the brief satisfaction of checking something off — yes, each one inches you a step closer to a goal. But I've lost sight of the goal because I'm head-down in the pebbles. The bigger items, the ones that require sitting with a question long enough for something useful to happen, get deferred to some later time when things quiet down. Things don't quiet down.
I used to be able to sit in a restaurant or a café — the steam off a coffee cup, the smell of roasting garlic, the sound of passing cars blurring into white noise — and find my way into something like a flow state. Reflective. A little slow. The kind of thinking where the bigger picture starts to arrange itself. I wrote during that time, and the writing helped. It has always helped me find clarity on the things I actually care about moving.
I Haven't Written Anything Outside of Work in Over a Year.
There's something worth naming in that irony. The tools that were supposed to free me up to have more time to cogitate and muse have kept me busier with smaller things. Whether that's a feature of the tools or a bug of how I've let myself use them — I genuinely don't know. I haven't had time to figure it out.
I have pressing deadlines today, as it happens. This thought will have to wait.
Which is, I realize, exactly the problem.
