What If Productivity Means Doing Less?

For as long as I can remember, productivity has been sold as a numbers game. Do more. Do it faster. Pack the calendar, hack the workflow, stack the apps. When AI came along, the promise was more of the same, just really hyped up. Faster reports, faster slides, faster emails. Yet it’s not addressing the root of the productivity problem, the constant hamster wheel we all run on to go faster.

But here’s the truth: productivity has never been about speed. It’s about clarity. It’s about knowing what actually matters, what doesn’t, and giving yourself permission to clear the clutter. AI tools give us the chance to finally rethink what productivity really means. Used poorly, it supercharges the same old busyness. Used wisely, it helps us clear the noise and focus on the work that matters most.

Why Hacks Don’t Last

I’ve seen this play out over and over. People chase hacks: time blocking, batching, Pomodoro, and Inbox Zero. I know, I’ve done them all. They work for a while, but as soon as stress or fatigue hits, those systems collapse. That’s not a sign of weakness. It’s biology. Your brain is built to save energy, and the part that handles planning burns a lot of it. So when life gets hectic, the brain defaults to old habits.

That’s why you find yourself checking email or Slack instead of focusing on deep work. Hacks collapse because they depend on constant vigilance. And vigilance is impossible to maintain forever. The good news is AI can step in here, not to fix your discipline (that’s still on you), but to make the defaults easier.

Imagine if the small, repetitive things just handled themselves. A draft email is waiting before you open your inbox. A meeting recap arrives without you attending. A research brief lands on your desk already synthesized. You save your limited energy for the work that only you can do.

The Better Question

Most of us ask, “How can I get this done faster?” It feels logical. But all speed does is help you finish things that maybe didn’t need to be done in the first place. A thirty-slide deck built twice as fast is still thirty slides someone has to sit through.

The better question is, “Do I need to do this at all?” When you start there, everything shifts. When you stop long enough to ask that, a surprising amount of work disappears. A thirty-slide deck becomes a one-page summary. A weekly meeting turns into a short AI-generated update. A long research process condenses into a handful of insights. It’s not about cutting corners; it’s actually about cutting noise. And when you cut noise, you uncover clarity. The kind of clarity that makes you sharper, calmer, and more effective.

Most of us ask, “How can I get this done faster?”

The better question is, “Do I need to do this at all?”

Attention Is Fragile

We like to pretend attention is limitless. Answer the emails, sit in the meetings, draft the report, and brainstorm the ideas. Just cram it all in. But attention doesn’t work that way. Your brain can only shine on one thing at a time, like a flashlight.

Contrary to popular belief, multi-tasking can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time (APA, 2006). Every time you switch tasks like checking emails, bouncing between apps, toggling dashboards, you burn energy. That’s why multitasking leaves you drained yet unfulfilled at the end of the day. How often have you finished your workday and wondered, “What did I actually accomplish today?”

AI can make this worse or better. Used without thought, it adds to the pile: more alerts, more drafts, more dashboards. But used well, it can protect your focus. Imagine drafting, editing, and refining inside one document instead of bouncing between five. Imagine AI keeping you anchored in one flow, cutting distractions instead of multiplying them. That’s when work stops feeling scattered and starts to feel like meaningful progress.

Subtraction as a Superpower

The most effective people I’ve worked with don’t brag about how much they do. They brag about what they’ve stopped doing. One senior leader I worked with eliminated his weekly two-hour staff meeting. Instead, AI pulls the updates, organizes them into a short summary, and sends it to everyone. Hundreds of hours freed in a single decision.

Another executive I know lets AI draft her emails. No more staring at blank screens. A day’s worth of correspondence now takes her an hour. She uses the time she saves for one-on-one coaching with her team. And for me, as an avid reader, I used to spend days digging through articles. Now, AI condenses the reading into a simple brief. The hours I once spent chasing sources are now spent thinking about what the findings actually mean.

Every subtraction creates space. And that space is where valuable work happens for strategy, creativity, and leadership, the kind of contributions no tool can replace. According to organizational thought leader Peter Drucker, “Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” That’s the kind of productivity that lasts, because it isn’t built on doing more. It’s built on doing less, better.

When I Fell Into the Trap of More

I’ll admit, I didn’t get this right at first. When I started using AI, I fell into the trap of more. More prompts. More dashboards. More output. I was working harder than ever, just with shinier tools. The breakthrough came when I flipped the question. Instead of asking AI, “How can I move faster?” I started asking, “What can I stop doing?” That’s when things changed. I stopped creating reports no one read. I stopped expanding decks that no one used. I stopped chasing work that only looked productive. Suddenly, my days felt lighter. My focus was sharper. My energy actually lasted. That was the turning point. The real gain wasn’t speed. It was clarity.

The Real Test of Productivity

So if you’ve struggled with productivity systems before, don’t blame yourself. The systems were built for volume, not clarity. AI tools give us a chance to flip that. The real test isn’t how many tasks you can automate, but how many mundane tasks you can eliminate.

The questions that matter are simple:

• What can I stop?

• What can I simplify?

• What’s the work only I can do?

That’s where real productivity lives, not in endless speed, but in meaningful outcomes. And with AI as a partner, you can finally protect your focus, cut the noise, and free your energy for the work that truly matters.

Not a productivity machine,

Yen Anderson