AI Was Supposed to Free My Time. It Consumed It.
Katie Parrott
AI was supposed to save time but often makes people work more and longer. It blurs the line between work and life, pulling people into endless tasks like a slot machine. To cope, we need breaks, boundaries, and to remind ourselves that we are doing enough.
10 Mar 2026
AI is changing work—and I don’t mean how we’re working, although it’s changing that, too. I mean how the work feels in your body at 1 a.m. when you can’t stop, or at 9 a.m. when you’re afraid you haven’t done enough. Technology has been blurring the line between work and life for decades, but the old tools pulled us back through obligation—you checked that email at 10 p.m. because it felt like you had to, not because you wanted to.
AI feels different**.** It pulls us back because it feels good. By the time you realize you’re overdoing it, you’ve already been overdoing it for hours.