How to Avoid the AI Productivity Trap

This Week

I've always been obsessed with productivity.

Not in a hustle-culture way, but in a "how can I fit more meaningful work into my day without burning out" way.

As a solopreneur, my to-do list is relentless. Content creation, client workshops, newsletter writing, speaking prep. The kind of list that used to take me weeks to get through now takes days, thanks to AI.

With all the hype around AI, it seems everyone is in a hurry to get more done, and churn out more content, regardless of the quality. 

I’ve caught myself slipping into that pattern at times. So I started looking for a way to work faster without letting my output slide into what Harvard Business Review calls workslop. That’s the low-quality content that looks productive but makes more work for everyone.

This week's newsletter is my answer to that question.

It's a guide to the tools I'm using to save hours every day while maintaining quality. You’ll see what I use, when I use it, and how it fits into my workflow. 

Ready to upgrade your productivity?

Read on!

The AI Productivity Trap (And How to Avoid It)

Harvard Business Review recently introduced a term I wish we didn’t need: “workslop.” It describes the wave of low-quality AI output flooding inboxes and slowing teams down.

You’ve seen it.

Emails that read like filler. Reports with shaky facts. Decks that feel like they were assembled by someone racing a timer. All of it creates more work for someone else to clean up.

AI makes this easy, and because of that, people confuse volume with progress. Teams end up buried under documents that look productive but add nothing.

I don’t think avoiding AI is the solution, though. Research shows that people gain up to five hours a week using AI, and daily users report higher pay than those who don’t. So the only practical move is to learn how to work with it so you maintain your standards.

Here’s how I use AI without slipping into workslop:

Human-in-the-Loop is Non-Negotiable: AI can draft the first 80 percent and I take the final 20. That means checking facts, tightening the structure, and adding the thinking.

Start Small, Measure Everything: Don't implement ten AI tools at once. Pick one high-impact use case (like automating meeting summaries), measure the time saved, then scale.

Protect the Time You Save: Don't let the five hours saved by AI immediately fill with more admin tasks. Use it for deep work, skill development, or strategic thinking.

Invest in AI Literacy: Learn to critically evaluate AI outputs, refine prompts, and chain commands for complex tasks. And never stop learning. AI is changing every week so that means learning about the latest updates, testing new tools and taking training wherever you can. Of course, you're already ahead of the game here… you read my newsletter 😊.

AI isn't going away, and neither is the pressure to use it, but the people getting value from it aren't chasing every new tool or automating everything they can. They're strategic and selective. 

That's how you save time without sacrificing quality.

My 5 Step Productivity Audit

Every few months I run a simple audit to see where my workflows and tools are helping and where they’re slowing me down.

I start with one question:

“What am I still doing by hand that an AI tool could handle without hurting the quality?” 

There are usually at least a few candidates, such as first drafts, outlines, recap notes, research, or slide deck design where I can streamline my process or the tools I’m using.

To make this audit more reliable, I use a simplified version of a framework from Harvard Business Review that I adapted for my own work.

Here it is:

1. Identify the process
Pick a single workflow and define the start and end points—something like content creation or meeting follow up.

2. Map the current state
List every step and the tool you use for it. Note the time each step takes and the output you get.

3. Assess how well it works
Track which steps run smoothly and which ones force manual cleanup. This gives you a sense of where you can optimize.

4. Decide where AI fits
For each step I ask three questions:

• Can AI replace this step?

• Can it support it?

• Should I eliminate it altogether?

5. Make a call and act on it
Keep what works, replace what doesn’t and remove anything that adds friction (that you feasibly can).

By the end of this audit, my workflow is lighter and more direct. The tools that stay have a clear job and I know I’m going to save another hour or two on manual tasks.

This AI Voice App Saves me 5 Hours a Week

I've been using Wispr Flow for the past few weeks, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's saving me at least an hour every single day.

The AI-powered voice-to-text tool lets me dictate into any app on my computer—emails, LinkedIn comments, ChatGPT prompts—at speeds up to 220 words per minute. That's 4x faster than typing.

Here’s how I’m using it.

Writing emails: This has probably been my biggest time saver. Instead of typing out long emails, I just dictate them. Even better, Wispr fixes my verbal stumbles for me.

Prompting LLMs: Instead of typing out detailed prompts for ChatGPT or Claude, I just speak them naturally. Because I'm giving the LLM more context, my outputs have improved significantly. 

LinkedIn engagement: Any good creator knows that the biggest part of maintaining your LinkedIn presence is engaging with others, and that means commenting on posts. In the past, this was a laborious process that required me thinking up a smart comment and then typing it out. Now all I need to do is transcribe my thoughts and voila! I’m done. I'm now commenting on double the number of posts as I was in the past.

Here are the features that make it especially useful:

• Automatically removes filler words ("um," "uh") and fixes grammar

• Learns my vocabulary and technical terms

• Works universally across all apps, no special integrations needed

• Supports 100+ languages

That said, it's not perfect. I have a tendency to talk too quickly, and sometimes it misses the start of my sentences. Despite that, it's still significantly faster than typing.

Pricing: Free plan with 2,000 words/week, or $12/month for unlimited usage

Try it out here.

An AI Browser That Completes Tasks For You

If you've ever wished your browser could just "do the work" for you, Strawberry Browser is exactly that. Similar to Atlas and Comet, it's a self-driving browser with AI companions that can scroll, click, and type to complete complex tasks autonomously.

You can choose from specialized assistants like Sales Sally (lead generation), Competition Camilla (competitor analysis), or Extractor Ella (data extraction). I’ve been working predominantly with Marketing Martin and I'm impressed with the results so far. He helped me research and write this week’s newsletter in about half the time.

Here are a few of the best features:

• Skills: Create custom, repeatable workflows. For example, I have a "Research Competitor" skill that automatically analyzes competitor websites, social media, and recent news.

• Autonomous Execution: The browser can open multiple tabs, research across different sites, and compile results without constant supervision.

• Approval-Based Actions: Your agents ask permission before completing important actions like making a purchase.

A few other things to keep in mind: It’s not the fastest chatbot on the market, so be prepared to wait for the Agents to answer your request. You can customize your agent settings but it doesn’t have as full a feature set at ChatGPT or Perplexity. 

Pricing: 

• Free: 2,000 credits

• Pro: $24/month (8,000 credits)

• Ultra: $250/month (50,000 credits)

You can sign up for the beta release here.

Email Search Failing You? Meet Shortwave

If you're drowning in email and your inbox search function has failed you one too many times, ShortWave is the AI-native email client you didn't know you needed.

Built by ex-Google engineers who worked on Gmail's AI features, it can integrate both Gmail and Outlook into one unified inbox. It operates much like a standard email platform, but it also comes with an incredibly powerful chatbot that can help you summarize, translate and organize your emails. 

My favorite feature: I can dictate an email to the AI chatbot, tell it who the recipient is, and ShortWave handles the rest. It drafts the email, finds the contact's email address, populates everything, and asks for my approval—all without me touching the keyboard.

Here are a few more:

• Translate emails: Compose and reply in 50+ languages

• Summarize everything: Long email threads, newsletters, forwarded chains 

• Schedule meetings: The assistant can access your calendar, identify key stakeholders from a thread, and send meeting invites

• Search like a human: Instead of remembering exact keywords, ask conversational questions like "what was the address of that restaurant Mike suggested last month?" The AI uses semantic search to understand intent, not just keywords

Why It's Better Than Standard Email:

• Smart Bundles: Automatically groups newsletters, promotions, and calendar updates so your inbox shows only what matters

• Ghostwriter AI: Learns your writing voice from sent emails and generates authentic-sounding replies in one click

• Email-to-Todo: Transforms emails into tasks you can manage directly in your inbox

• Team Collaboration: Share threads, add comments, and assign emails to teammates.

Pricing: 

• Free with basic AI features

• Business: $24/month

If you sign up with my referral link you’ll get $20 off! Just click here.

The Only Turkey Who Survived AI Season

I didn’t expect the first holiday ad that made me feel something to come from an AI model named Veo 3. Yet here we are.

Google dropped a new spot for the season. The premise is cheeky and fun: a turkey on the run, right before Thanksgiving. It’s a cute way to showcase Google’s AI mode and you might not even realize it was made with AI.

Google Creative Lab co-founder Robert Wong told The Wall Street Journal that while they’re not planning to make every ad with AI, it almost doesn’t matter: “Consumers don’t really care if ads use AI.” 

I’m not sure if I believe that. 

Take Coca-Cola’s newest holiday spot. The one minute commercial, made with OpenAI’s Sora, was meant to blend nostalgia with innovation, but it clearly didn't hit the mark. 

Viewers called it “soulless,” “creepy,” and even “emotionally vacant.” Others said it looked like a bad AI demo with a red label slapped on top. 

This season is the first real test of AI in big brand work and already there’s a clear split. When the tool supports the idea, the ad works. When the tool tries to be the idea, it falls apart.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m a sucker for a well timed pun. 

Watch the Google ad on YouTube and let me know what you think.

Pausing Productivity for Pie

I'm taking Thanksgiving week off. Even productivity obsessives need a break. Zero to Unicorn will be back in your inbox in December. 

See you then!

Want to Level Up Your AI Game?

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