I’ve seen this pattern a few times now.

When I moved from Illustrator to Sketch, I became faster.

But my work hours didn’t reduce.

When I moved from Sketch to Figma, same thing.

Faster workflows. Same 9-hour days.

Then design systems came in.

I didn’t have to create everything from scratch anymore.

A lot of things became reusable.

Again, I became faster.

But I still worked the same amount.

What changed wasn’t my time.

It was the expectation.

Instead of doing one project well,

I was now expected to handle multiple.

Instead of one exploration,

there were three options.

Instead of finishing early,

the bar just moved.

Now we’re entering the AI phase.

It will make a lot of tasks faster.

No doubt.

But I don’t think it will reduce how much we work.

It will just increase how much we’re expected to do.

If you’re handling 4 projects today,

you might handle 8 or 10 tomorrow.

Same time.

More output.

So yeah, AI will make you productive.

Just don’t expect it to make your workday lighter.

Happy Monday