One of the side effects of being on social too much is that our patience reduces drastically – to the point where even being on social we get frustrated…
We’re scrolling through our social feed and a post catches our eye. But it requires us to click in to thread to see the rest of it – so we skip over. We’re too impatient. On to the next one.
Now imagine we take that impatience and apply it to other areas of our life. We tend to put off things that require a tiny bit of extra effort – even small things like reading an email thoroughly so we can reply helpfully. And of course, it grows from there.
Remember when we used to happily watch 5, 10 or even 30 minute videos – because we’d learn, think and improve. But now even a 5 minute video feels onerous. We don’t have the patience to watch. Instead, we ask AI for the quick summary. We want the sound bite.
Expand this to books (yes, remember those), and the problem is much more obvious. We want a summary. We don’t have the patience to even read an entire book anymore.
In our daily work, this is causing problems. We put off (often using a ‘productivity tool’ to snooze till later) the items requiring careful thought, and attend to the low value busywork instead. Rushing off quick replies to emails, not paying attention in meetings, quickly summarising things, or needlessly expanding with AI.
We’ve lost the patience to do the hard work. Except it’s not hard work. It’s the usual work. The valuable work.
Move this into consulting, design, and creative work, and the problem is evident. We don’t put the effort or time into carefully thinking through business processes, or thinking through design and creative concepts. We outsource it all to AI, take whatever AI gives us, and plunk it into a reply or a deliverable.
This might sound negative, but it’s an opportunity. An opportunity for the people who can be disciplined enough to take the time to think things through – and reply, respond, create, carefully.
The challenge is working out the high-value items where this matters.
Caught up in an overwhelm of busy daily activities, it can be hard to isolate the tasks needing the careful thinking. That need the discipline. That need the attention. That need the patience.
