I believe in AI. But my AI assistant gave me more work than it could finish

I’m a writer, publisher and entrepreneur. I expect a certain amount of chaos. There are manuscripts, emails, projects, follow-ups and the occasional administrative mystery that arrives disguised as a perfectly ordinary Tuesday.

Still, 156 items suggested that my productivity system had developed career ambitions of its own. It was building a department. Soon it would need an org chart.

Some of the work was already underway. Some items overlapped. Some were reminders about other reminders. Tasks that belonged together had become separate obligations, each carrying the emotional weight of an unfinished thing.

I had asked for help getting work done. I was getting very good at maintaining evidence that work existed.

I use AI, and I remain a big believer in what it can do. It helps organize ideas and get thoughts onto a page. Technology that makes expression and work more accessible matters to me.

That is why I want to be honest about the less glamorous part: an assistant can generate work faster than it can finish it.

Ask it to help with a project, and it may produce a plan. Ask it to improve the plan, and it may produce a checklist. Ask it to make sure nothing gets missed, and the checklist may develop subcommittees.

Every item can sound reasonable on its own. Collectively, they can turn help into a second job.

The problem starts with an easy confusion: identifying the next step feels like progress.

Sometimes it is. A clear plan can get a stuck project moving. But a plan also has a comforting property: it can be created without confronting the hardest part of the work.

A draft can sit there looking polished. A calendar can fill up with preparation. A task can be checked off because someone wrote instructions for completing it.

Meanwhile, the email still needs sending. The application still needs submitting. The client still needs the finished file.