The Productivity Lounge | The Future of Better Work
Daily Brief #4 · November 10, 2026
A manager uses AI to draft a weekly update in ten minutes. The team lead spends twenty minutes checking figures and chasing context. At Friday’s meeting, everyone still asks who owns the next step.
The draft got faster. Did the work?
In more than 15 years in public-sector HR and administration, I’ve learned to pay attention to what happens after a document leaves someone’s desk. A staffing update can look finished while the people receiving it still have to work out what changed, who decides, and what’s due. That’s where a faster draft can quietly become someone else’s busywork.
Try one small test this week
Pick a recurring task your team already uses AI to help with. A weekly update, meeting recap, or routine report will do. Choose one recent example you can reconstruct, then follow the next one from first draft to decision or action.
- Count everyone’s time. Include drafting, fact-checking, revisions, and follow-up. If one person saves time and another takes on extra work, record both.
- Check what the reader could do. Could they make the decision or take the next step from the first version they received? If they had to ask a follow-up question, write down what was missing.
- Change one thing before the next run. For a weekly update, put the decision needed, the owner, and the due date at the top. Keep a named person responsible for checking the facts and signing off.
Ask the people who draft, review, and use the update whether the change made their work easier. If the numbers are rough, label them as estimates. One run can show you where to look next.
People First. Technology Second. Before calling an AI workflow a productivity win, ask the person who receives the output what it helped them do.
The Lounge Question
Think of one AI-assisted task your team ran this week. What decision did it help someone make, and what did they still have to chase down?