AI is Making Me Work More—And I Love It

AI isn’t delivering the promised four-day workweek. For me, it’s enabling a new kind of perpetual creation where the gap between imagination and execution shrinks. After months of integrating AI tools into my daily workflow, I’m working more than ever, staying in flow states longer, and frankly couldn’t be happier about it.

The prevailing narrative around artificial intelligence in the workplace promises effortless efficiency, automating mundane tasks clearing our plates, freeing us up for… well, something else. That certainly is happening in places, but my reality as someone leading AI initiatives at InterWorks has been starkly different. AI isn’t making me work less—it’s making me work more than ever, in the most engaging way possible.

It’s a constant hum of activity that feels fundamentally different from traditional productivity. I find myself checking the clock on my Claude Code subscription, anticipating the next hour when I can dive into what others have dubbed “vibe coding.” While waiting for colleagues to join a Zoom call, I’m not idly scrolling—I’m prompting an AI to kick off another task. During my commute, what used to be passive listening time has transformed into active brainstorming sessions with Gemini, conversations that directly seed my next blog post or a crucial client email. Need a quick code tweak for mobile view? That’s a fast fix with Codex on my phone, even while I’m outside by my pool.

This isn’t just busy work—it’s the consistent achievement of what psychologists call flow state. The key insight? AI has become my ultimate creative partner in managing the delicate balance that makes flow possible.

Finding the AI-Powered Flow State

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defined flow as the experience of being fully immersed in an activity, energized by focus and enjoyment. A critical component of achieving flow is the perfect balance between task challenge and skill level. Too hard creates anxiety, too easy breeds boredom.

This is where AI fundamentally changes the game. It masterfully manages both ends of that spectrum. AI speeds up the boring, repetitive parts of my work (the boilerplate code, tedious formatting, initial rough drafts) that would otherwise lead to boredom and distraction. Simultaneously, it smooths out the overly difficult parts that typically break concentration and create frustration.

When I hit a complex problem or mental block, AI acts as a scaffold, providing starting points or fresh angles that keep me within my capabilities while constantly pushing their boundaries. By removing friction from both ends of the difficulty spectrum, AI allows me to stay in that perfect, productive channel where creativity thrives.

Deeper Thinking, Not Dumber Work

“AI makes you dumber.” I’ve seen the hot takes circulating, as you have. There was recent Fast Company article titled “Science shows AI is probably making you dumber—luckily, there’s a fix.” These headlines grab attention, but they miss the critical nuance of the research: the effect of AI depends entirely on how you use it.

When implementation time shrinks, I find myself with more bandwidth to interrogate the idea itself. I’m not outsourcing my thinking; I’m augmenting my critical process. It has become genuinely engaging to bounce ideas between Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT, actively asking for critique, revision, and alternative perspectives. Each AI acts as a different kind of sparring partner, forcing me to refine arguments and strengthen concepts.

The result? I’m thinking more, not less. I’m asking better questions because I can quickly test multiple approaches. I’m considering more options, because I have time and for the joy of it.

This Site is Exhibit A

This methodology has become so ingrained that it’s the very reason this blog exists. I needed another sandbox—an excuse to build something new, iterate on design, play with words, and experiment with features. This blog is a living document of this new creative process. What I’m describing represents a fundamental shift in how my work happens. When the friction between idea and execution drops to near zero, you enter that blissful realm of flow.

For those leading analytics and AI initiatives, this personal experience reveals something crucial about adoption strategies. The organizations that will win with AI are the ones that use it to fundamentally enhance human capability. When your data teams can move from insight to implementation faster and strategic thinking isn’t constrained by execution bandwidth, you’ll achieve a true competitive advantage. Use AI to unleash and expand your team’s capabilities.

This is the new way to work. It’s not about offloading our responsibilities onto a machine, it’s about closing the gap between imagination and reality, enabling a state of perpetual creation. And I don’t want to go back.