AI is not your saviour | Time to take responsibility for our productivity

I’ve recently been researching the current shifts in productivity habits for knowledge workers.

This is a topic I find fascinating, and it links strongly to my work on personal resilience and

effectiveness. I’ve thought for some time that we are in a period of change when it comes to

how productive we can be. Driven by what I read and see, I am thoughtful about the impact

of always-connected technologies; without the right supporting personal guardrails and

organisational culture, we are at risk of eroding our effectiveness, not enhancing it. Reading

some of the research in this area, one could argue that for some people, it is already too

late. The erosion has begun.

The knowledge worker is an interesting concept when it comes to what it means to be

productive. For me, there’s a dangerous badge of honour worn by the always-on

professional. We have all met them; perhaps we see them in the mirror. They are the

managers and colleagues who speak with a degree of pride about their responsiveness, for

example claiming that whether it dawn or midnight, they are available if their team needs

them. Yet, these same individuals often simultaneously voice a familiar frustration: they have

no capacity for the important work they need to progress, let alone for looking after their own health and wellbeing.

This situation is not a coincidence; it is a symptom of a workplace culture that has allowed

the boundaries of the working day to blur and, in some cases, disappear. This has been

happening over the last couple of decades but has been accelerated by COVID and, more

recently, by the availability of AI tools to ‘support us’. Recent data suggests that we are no

longer just working from home or at the office; we are, in fact, working in a digital office that

never closes its doors.

The Data of the Digital Dawn and Dusk

According to the 2025 Microsoft Work Trend Special Report, which draws on telemetry

data from over 300 million users of its Office 365 suite, the traditional workday has been

replaced by a fragmented, 24-hour cycle of connectivity. The statistics are a stark reminder

of how deeply email (and other messaging tools) has permeated our resting hours.

The report reveals that 40% of users who are online at 6:00 AM are not checking the news

or personal messages; they are reviewing work emails. Before the first morning drink is

finished, nearly half of the workforce has already tethered their cognitive focus to the

demands of work.

This trend does not dissipate at the other end of the day. The report highlights that meetings scheduled after 8:00 PM are up 16%. For me, even more concerning is the activity late at night: after 10:00 PM, nearly a third (29%) of active users dive back into their inboxes. The average employee now sends or receives more than 50 messages outside of core business hours. Of course, the Office 365 data only covers Microsoft apps, so there is a fair chance this is a conservative number if you also include other tools, personal messages, and

interaction with social media.

The Illusion of Productivity

The justification for this constant connectivity is often flexibility or responsiveness. And this,

of course, is true. We no longer need to treat the office as a modern-day factory, restricted to all working at the same time. However, there is a significant difference between flexible work and endless work. When we check emails at 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM, we create an illusion of productivity that masks a deeper inefficiency.

When a leader says, "My team knows I’ll respond day or night", they aren't just

demonstrating commitment; they are creating a culture of urgency that ripples downward. If

the boss is on email at 10:30 PM, their team can feel compelled to be there too. This leads

to workload creep. We find ourselves working at a faster pace and extending work into more

hours of the day, often without being asked to do so, simply because the digital door is

always ajar.

In some organisations, people are aware of this trend. As one example, the well-meaning

email signature block that became popular during COVID: "I am sending this at a time that suits me; please respond at a time that suits you.". I think this falls short of what is required.

Often, the ping and distraction of not knowing what is in a message is enough to lift our

cortisol levels and trigger anxiousness. Also, given it is a signature block, the recipient has

usually read the content before getting to the instruction. Perhaps the signature block is

merely a mechanism to ease any guilt the sender may feel?

This always-on state has a physical and mental price. The body does not distinguish

between professional stress and personal time. By occupying our early mornings and late

nights with digital correspondence, we are trading our recovery time for incremental gains in

inbox management, a trade that is leading to cognitive fatigue, weakened decision-making,

and a growing number of physical & mental health-related issues. None of which, I think

most people could agree are the route to productivity increases.

Will Technology Save Us?

There’s a growing hope from some that Artificial Intelligence will act as a digital saviour,

summarising our inboxes and drafting our early-morning replies to save us time. Yet, early

research suggests the opposite may be true. A study reported in the Harvard Business

Review found that AI tools often intensified work rather than reducing it. As tools make it

easier to send messages, the volume simply increases.

Data from ActivTrak, which assessed 443 million hours of work, showed that after gaining

access to AI tooling, the time employees spent on email and messaging apps more than

doubled. Technology is making us faster, but instead of using that speed to reclaim our

evenings, we are using it to cram even more communication into the fringes of our day.

Establishing Personal Boundaries

If technology won’t save us, and organisations struggle to measure the productivity of

knowledge work, the responsibility falls on the individual. I’d suggest that we must recognise

that being always on is not a productivity strategy; it is a route to effectiveness erosion.

Reclaiming the hours before 7:00 AM and after 8:00 PM is not about being less committed. It

is about protecting the cognitive resources required to do higher-quality work. Again, I’d

suggest productivity is not measured by how many messages we process, but by the value

we create when we are fully present and well-rested.

Ask yourself: is the 10:00 PM email truly moving the needle, or is it just a habit born of

anxiety? Sustainable productivity requires us to set boundaries and generate the required

discipline that the technology around us refuses to acknowledge. It is time to close the

laptop, silence the notifications, and remember that work is something we do, not something. we are.

What boundaries are you setting and how effective are they? What’s going on in your

organisation when it comes to an culture? Have you found a better balance?

As always, I am interested in your thoughts.

Damian

damian@effectivechallenge.com Damian Piper CBE is a performance, productivity and resilience coach who works with capable people to unlock sustainable performance by changing what gets in their way | Founder, Effective Challenge. You can find more of his thinking at effectivechallenge.com