Combatting the Rush of Hurry Up Technology & Work
Or, slowing down before you get rushed into doing something stupid
If you don’t slow down, chances are you’re going to do something stupid. Perhaps something profoundly stupid. And it may cost you, and your employer, a whole lot.
Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before, but the superpower of technology, obviously AI, but also really any computing technology, is to do simple things incredibly quickly. Maybe think of it this way: technology like AI is The Flash, not Superman.
What this means practically is that when we use technology, particularly AI tools like large language models, or LLMs, it allows us to make mistakes, sometimes profoundly stupid mistakes, and make them so much quicker than if we had just been working with our silly old brains. And those mistakes can cost you money, or a job, or your reputation.
Avoiding stupid mistakes can be easy. It just requires you to slow down and THINK before jumping into the latest shiny techno-bobble.
Slowing Down to the Speed of Intention
The original title for this post was going to be “Slowing Down to the Speed of Intention,” but that felt a bit cliché and was quite similar to a number of existing books and philosophies around slowing down in life.
There is, of course, tremendous value in slowing down in any number of aspects of life, but this post is more specifically about slowing down before we allow technology and the onslaught of AI to rush us into making catastrophic mistakes.
The time to take time and think is before those mistakes happen. Put another way, slowing down your car after you’ve already gone off the cliff is kinda a moot point, isn’t it?
So how do we slow down enough to be intentional about the decisions we’re about to make, either for ourselves or for our work?
Plan time to plan
Ask good questions
Anchor yourself in your values
Start small, start smart
Plan to adapt
Plan time to plan
I struggle to offer this as a piece of advice. Tons of people, myself included sometimes, fall into the perilous trap of analysis paralysis, or failure to launch due to overthinking and waiting for the perfect plan to be in place.
But if you don’t leave yourself any time to think, preferably before you act, then you deprive yourself of the opportunity to ask important questions and answer as many of those questions as possible when the answers are most valuable.
Ask good questions
The older I get, the more I realize how truly vital it is to ask good questions in pretty much any and all aspects of life.
Asking good questions doesn’t actually need to be difficult. Good questions can be simple questions.
“I want to do this [thing].” OK, why?
“I know why I want to do it. I want to do this [thing].” OK, how?
It’s really easy to skip straight to some of the other “5 W” questions: who, what, where, when. We answer those questions quickly, then jump into “how,” but too often skip over “why” and then focus on the logistical aspects of “how.”
When we can clearly express why we want to do something, it should help us ensure two incredibly important things: one, that the endeavor is worthwhile and going to help accomplish our ultimate goals, but also that the endeavor aligns with our values.
Similarly, when we clearly express how we want to do something, we should be answering the logistics of our plan, but also the means we are willing, or unwilling, to use to accomplish our goal.
Anchor yourself in your values
I believe this is the most important thing we need to be intentional about when it comes to decision-making, planning, and executing any project. In some ways, this is a continuation of asking good questions.
What means are you willing, or unwilling, to use to accomplish your goals?
What output are you willing to put your name to?
What outcomes, expected or unexpected, desired or undesired, are you willing to accept?
Especially when it comes to using AI for our work, these are vitally important questions to answer for yourself before you start.
AI can assist you in a great deal of your work. As many people have discovered, it can actually do a great deal of your work for you as well. But at the end of the day, AI is just a tool, and you are responsible for the “work” that you put your name to.
If we don’t consider the implications of the means we take toward a particular end, we risk compromising not just our integrity, but potentially also compromising sensitive data, relationships, or the balance of a particular ecosystem that keeps everything functioning. We also risk setting a precedent we may be unable, or unwilling, to maintain moving forward.
Start small, start smart
In my last post, I covered some easy ways to incorporate AI into your workflow for quick wins. The key concept there was to start small and use technology in a way that makes sense to you.
I believe one of the most common causes of problematic AI usage is a lack of understanding around what the technology is and what it does.
By starting small, you gain experience and exposure to the technology, allowing you to learn for yourself where the stakes are low. If you immediately leap to using technology to handle the most important tasks in your life, whether professionally or personally, it’s like walking into a casino and putting your entire life savings on a game you’ve never played before.
Starting smart means only using a piece of technology once you understand, at least at a basic, fundamental level, how it works and what it does. If you understand what is generally happening behind the curtain, you can better predict the output and outcomes that you will get and make an informed decision about whether they are acceptable to you.
Plan to adapt
Or, what happens when I didn’t do those first four things?
If you succumbed to the rushing tide of culture and capitalism, congratulations; you are human. And now you’re sitting there wondering, what now?
The best time to slow down and be intentional about our actions is certainly before we jump into the deep end, but it isn’t the only chance we get.
If things feel like they’re going off the rails a bit, hit pause.
Be honest. Mistakes are forgivable. Lies are harder to overcome.
Be humble. We can all learn from experience, even bad experiences.
Be willing to adapt. New information means new opportunities.
Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Don’t double down out of stubborn pride.
The goal is not to move slower, but rather to move more intentionally. The real risk is not that you went at the speed of intention - the real risk is realizing you were going the wrong way while driving 100 mph.