AI can't rest for you
Everyone's talking about what AI can do. The hours it saves, the tasks it handles, the headspace it frees up. A lot of that is real. AI is genuinely changing how we work, and for the people using it well, there's more capacity in their days than there used to be.
So if you have more time, what are you doing with it?
Because if you're anything like the leaders I work with, you're filling it. You finish one thing faster and immediately move to the next. The gap AI created gets scheduled over. More meetings, more output, more proof that you're using the time wisely. The efficiency gain becomes an efficiency trap, and you end up just as depleted, just with a longer to-do list to show for it.
We have a strange relationship with rest. We treat it like a reward, something you earn once everything else is done. But everything is never done. So rest keeps getting bumped. And then one day you hit a wall, not dramatically, just quietly, and realise you've been running on empty for longer than you'd like to admit. That's the boom and bust pattern. Push, crash, recover just enough to push again.
The thing I keep coming back to (and we explore this in this week's episode of Untangling Life) is that rest is where a huge amount of real thinking happens. The shower thoughts. The walk where something clicks. The good night's sleep before you make the call you've been putting off.
Tired leaders make worse decisions.
If AI is genuinely giving us back some of our time, using it to rest is one of the most strategic choices we can make.
Cheat sheet
What to actually do with the time AI gives back
Notice the urge to fill it before you act on it
The first thing most of us do when we gain time is find something to put in it. Start by just noticing that impulse. You don't have to act on it. The gap is allowed to exist.
Do something that has no output
A walk, a long lunch, reading something unrelated to work. Not as a productivity hack. Just because you're a person and people need that. The thinking that happens in that space is often better than anything you'd have scheduled
Use it for the thinking work you've been avoiding
Not more tasks. The actual strategic, creative, hard thinking that keeps getting pushed because you were too busy. That's what the time is for.
Don't let AI save you time so your employer gets more of it
This one matters. If AI makes you faster and the only person who benefits is the business, that's worth noticing. The time AI gives back belongs to you first.