Nearly all of the ‘hot tips’ and other insights around AI focus on the time it will save you and your business. It seems we all want AI to do the job for us so we can spend our time on something else.
We are almost exclusively focused on one metric: efficiency. We have tools that draft emails in seconds, summarise hour-long meetings in bullet points, and generate endless reports.
The idea is that if AI can do the work for us, we save minutes here and there, eventually accumulating hours that we
can divert into more productive tasks.
With that said, I believe ‘saving time’ is the wrong goal entirely. In fact, it might be a trap.
When we view things like writing and thinking as mere ‘tasks’ to be completed, we miss the underlying reality about how human cognition works. Writing is not just a means of transmitting information; it is critical to generating understanding.
When we outsource the work, we don’t just lose the friction of the task; we lose the cognitive benefits that come with it. Consider writing an email that stands out, managing meetings on your calendar, or updating a customer database.
The AI ‘efficiency geeks’ would consider this drudgery and a waste of time. They would offer to automate it; however, in that process, it loses all meaning to the targets of these activities and to us.
When we look at what happens when you write an email, we see something different. You stare at the blank screen.
You force yourself to think about the person you are addressing, what has happened, what they care about, how they might react, and the response you hope to provoke.
This is what cognitive scientists call the ‘Theory of Mind’, the ability to simulate another person’s mental state. The time you spend struggling to write is not wasted. It is an attempt to connect with meaning, building trust and confidence.
That ‘thinking-doing-writing’ loop is where the foundation of building the relationship is established.
If you prompt an AI to “write a high-impact note,” you get the message instantly, and it’s probably not bad!
However, you bypass the internal thinking about how to connect most effectively with someone. You have the output, but you have lost the meaning.
In research into how our brains interact with tools, psychologists distinguish between Cognitive Offloading and Cognitive Scaffolding.
Cognitive Offloading occurs when we use a tool to skip the effort entirely. It’s the ‘GPS Effect’: because we no longer have to navigate, our ability to build mental maps disappears. We become slaves to simple instructions.
When we use AI to generate our thoughts for us, we are offloading our critical thinking. We risk losing the ability to navigate complex situations because AI is doing the thinking for us.
Cognitive Scaffolding is different. This is using a tool to support higher-order thinking, allowing us to explore things we may have never been able to do before.
This is the most important shift. We are currently using AI to avoid thinking when we should be using it as a compass to set our direction, while maintaining the ability to find the most effective route.
If the point isn’t to save time, what is it?
It should be to amplify the quality of our thoughts. And through this, magnifying the meaning and impact to those with whom we seek to engage.
Here is what that looks like in practice: Don’t outsource the draft! The ‘Generation Effect’ in psychology shows that we remember and understand information better when we generate it ourselves. Write your own messy first draft and struggle with the logic. That effort results in your brain building new neural connections.
Use AI for the critique. Once you have done the hard work of thinking, then bring in the AI. Ask it: “What counterarguments am I missing?” or “Where is my logic weak?” or “What metaphor would make this clearer?” Take that input and finalise what you are doing.
In this model, you aren’t saving time. In fact, you might be spending more time. But the result is not just a generic email or a bland article; it is a rigorous, pressure-tested, synthesised idea. And the impact of that extra effort and time will stand out!
The danger of our current AI focus is that it treats our cognitive struggle as a time waster, something that makes us inefficient. It amplifies our ability to engage others in high-impact ways.
If we let AI do the work for us, our mental capability will atrophy. Over time, our ability to understand and connect with meaning declines. While we end up with a surplus of time, we experience a deficit of meaning. The real power of this technology isn’t found in how many minutes it saves us, but in how much deeper it allows us to go.
Let the AI organise your calendar and sort your data. But when it comes to articulating who you are and what you think? Keep the friction. That’s where the humanity is. Isn’t that what business and selling are really about? Humans connecting with humans to achieve shared goals.
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