The Human Bottleneck: What Happens When AI Can Work Faster Than You Can Decide?

A recent post from Mel Waller got me thinking about bottlenecks.

Mel has been expanding his publishing business pretty aggressively and using AI to help him with more and more of the work. He is also working toward an Operations Manual so that everything he knows about running the business does not stay trapped in his head.

Since I started thinking about this, Mel posted some actual numbers that make the point even clearer.

His AI team completed 13 full book transcriptions in five days.

At first, Mel had to approve their requests. As they proved themselves, he gave them more latitude, and they were able to work longer at a time.

Then he finally gave the AI team the day off so he could catch up on the publishing work they had produced.

The bottleneck moved.

We got to talking about bottlenecks.

Then I had one of those uncomfortable realizations.

Speaking of bottlenecks. I am the biggest one.

Maybe not the only one.

But definitely one of the biggest.

Faster Does Not Mean Finished

AI can help me do things much faster than I could do them before.

Research.

Organizing information.

Comparing things.

Finding problems.

Keeping track of projects.

Helping with drafts.

Creating images.

All kinds of things.

But eventually that faster work comes back to me.

The research is done.

I have to look at it.

The draft is ready.

I have to read it.

The image is finished.

I have to decide if I like it.

There is a decision to make.

I have to make it.

So AI can remove one bottleneck and discover another one sitting right behind it.

Me.

And there is only one of me.

My Day

This is not even allowing for taking care of Dad, the house, the yard, groceries, errands, meals, appointments, and everything else that has to get done.

My day does not start with eight empty business hours.

Those other things are not interruptions from my life.

They are my life too.

So if I spend time taking care of Dad instead of working on a book, that time is not wasted.

But it does mean that whatever time I have for the books, websites, Wealthy Affiliate, and everything else has to come out of what is left.

A few days ago I said:

How are we ever going to get all of this stuff caught up, much less done?

I know we will never get done.

That is not really the problem.

It is just overwhelming.

There are always more ideas.

More things I want to build.

More things I need to work on.

More things I discover that need fixing.

And more things that seem worth saving for later.

I Have Been Putting Things Off

I have been spending considerably more time than usual at Wealthy Affiliate this month.

There have been reasons for doing that, and I have learned quite a bit from it.

But I also had to admit something else.

I have been putting off working on the books and/or websites.

That is me deciding, one thing at a time, what gets my attention.

The problem is that I can stay very busy and still not touch one of the things I keep saying is important.

I can answer comments.

Read posts.

Look something up.

Check something.

Follow another idea.

Fix something small.

And suddenly a big piece of the day is gone.

I did things.

That does not necessarily mean I worked on the thing I most needed to work on.

Othnyel recently used the words business and busyness.

I keep coming back to that.

They are not the same thing.

Wally World Is Another Kind of Bottleneck

I have also been looking at how I handle Wally World.

A normal trip can take me four or five hours.

That is already a large chunk of a day.

But it is worse than that.

By the end of the trip and unloading everything, my feet and ankles are killing me.

And that can last another day or two.

So the cost is not just four or five hours.

It is the walking.

The standing.

Pushing the cart around.

Finding everything.

Loading it.

Unloading it.

Then sometimes hurting afterward.

I recently did a deep dive on ordering for pickup.

Right now I am thinking about a hybrid approach.

Let Walmart get most of the dry goods, household stuff, bulky things, and other things I do not need to personally inspect.

Then I go inside for the cold stuff, meat, produce, and the things I want to choose myself.

Or maybe I eventually get to the point where I let WW do it all, and I just pick it up.

I don't know yet.

I have to try it.

But either approach could save me a lot of walking.

And that matters.

If I can save a few hours on the trip and keep my feet and ankles from hurting for the next day or two, I have gained more than a few hours.

I have gained some of the capacity I would have lost afterward.

Maybe Capacity Is the Real Problem

I started out thinking this was about time.

Then I thought maybe it was about attention.

Now I think it is probably bigger than either one.

Capacity.

Time matters.

Attention matters.

Energy matters.

Physical wear matters.

And what a task takes out of me after it is done matters too.

I can technically have another three hours left in the day.

That does not mean I still have three useful hours left in me.

There is a difference.

Not Every Bottleneck Is Something I Should Remove

Just because I am a bottleneck does not mean I should remove myself from everything.

Some things probably should not require me.

If AI can organize information faster than I can, fine.

If a service can save me hours walking around Walmart, I am willing to try it.

If software can handle a repetitive task safely, why am I doing it manually?

But there are other things I want to stop with me.

If something changes in one of my books, I want the final decision.

If something goes out under my name, I want to know what it says.

If I make a business decision involving my money, reputation, or time, I want to understand what I am agreeing to.

If AI gives me an important fact, I want it checked.

Those things may slow everything down.

Good.

Sometimes they should.

That is when I think the bottleneck is really a control point.

Not every bottleneck is a problem. Some bottlenecks are control points.

The trick is figuring out which is which.

What Actually Requires Me?

At first I was asking:

What should AI take off my desk?

I do not think that question is big enough anymore.

It could be AI.

Automation.

A service.

A better system.

A different way of doing something.

Or maybe deciding something simply does not need doing right now.

The question I need to ask is:

What am I doing that actually requires me?

Because there are things only I can decide.

There are also plenty of things that probably do not need me doing every step.

I Need to Test Things, Not Hand Everything Over

I also do not think I have to go from doing everything myself to handing everything over.

Mel has been testing what AI can do for him.

That makes sense.

Test it.

See what happens.

Check it.

If it works, give it a little more room.

If it does not, change it.

I can do the same thing with Wally World.

Try the hybrid approach.

See how much time and walking it saves.

See if they actually get the right stuff.

Maybe later I expand it.

Maybe I don't.

I do not have to make the final decision before I have even tried the first version.

The same idea works with AI.

Test it. Verify it. Then decide whether it has earned more room.

So What Do I Do With All of This?

I still have the same basic problem.

There is more I want to do than I have the time or capacity to do.

That is probably never going away.

I know we will never get done.

I am okay with that.

What I do not want is to keep getting to the end of the day wondering why the book did not get touched.

Or the website.

Taking care of Dad matters.

The house matters.

The yard matters.

Groceries matter.

My books matter.

My websites matter.

The problem is deciding what actually needs me, what can be handled another way, and what can wait.

So instead of asking:

How are we ever going to get all of this stuff caught up, much less done?

Maybe I need to keep asking:

What actually needs to be done by me?

I don't want to remove myself from the system.

I want to stop using myself where I am not needed so I have more of me left for the places where I am.

That sounds simple when I write it.

I suspect actually doing it is going to be the hard part. 😁

What about you?

What are you still doing that probably does not require you?

And where do you think you should remain the control point, even if it slows things down?

JD