How a Virtual Assistant Taught Me to Appreciate Busywork

Our most valuable contributions often come from reflection, seemingly "unproductive" conversations, exploration of dead ends, and invisible mental processing.

Consider a writer working on a complex piece. Their most productive day might involve two hours staring out a window thinking, a long walk where they mentally structure their argumen

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How much time do you spend playing Candy Crush or using some other app on your phone? You probably don’t know, but it’s a habit you’ve developed in the in-between moments to kill time. For me, it’s scrolling through Instagram. Often, I do it when I’m procrastinating on work that’s important but not urgent. I see my partner playing games on his phon

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Within these sorts of schedules, there is little tolerance or space for the things we say we want to nurture in children: creativity, imagination, spontaneity, the patience borne of extended boredom, space to really feel your emotions, or any activity that can’t be boiled down into a potential line on a future college application. (There’s also lit... See more

What does this history tell us about life in the 21st century? Bosses set hours and income, and workers adjust. When husbands controlled their wives’ schedules, they insisted on a clean and tidy home and a ready-made dinner; and their wives typically obliged. When today’s employers hire a full-time worker under modern labor laws, they insist on a 4... See more

This shift has ushered in what Every’s Dan Shipper calls an allocation economy, where the value of work increasingly hinges not on traditional labor but on how we allocate scarce resources—time, attention, and focus. In this new paradigm, the question becomes less about what AI can do and more about how we choose to use it, what we allow it to repl... See more