Clarity Is Everything in the Age of AI

"AI is the new electricity" - Andrew Ng

When AI Assistance Becomes a Productivity Trap

Recently I was coding with the help of anAI assistant. What would have taken an hour on my own was still unfinished after two. It wasn't that the AI was terrible; in fact, its suggestions were mostly correct. It was just misunderstanding one small but critical detail over and over. After a certain point, I realised I'd spent more time trying to educate the agent than it would have taken to simply write the code myself.

So I stopped, I stepped back, and reviewed the outcome I had defined at the outset. I was getting paid to solve a problem, not train a bot. It turned out, I didn't need that code at all. A different, simpler route was available, and one that the AI, with all its pattern-matching brilliance, never could have seen.

The Real Work: Deciding What WeWant to Be True

That moment reminded me: the real work is not in doing, but in deciding what we want to be true. So, if you want to understand how to work with AI to accelerate your effectiveness, you need a paradigm for reliably creating clarity about what needs to be done, when, and by whom.

There's a myth that leadership is mostly about charisma or vision. But having coached hundreds of leaders across industries, I have seen how the most effective leaders bring clarity of purpose to the people around them. They make it easier to act decisively, because they've removed the ambiguity. They also walk their talk.

Your AI Tools Need LeadershipToo

Often they work closely with a human assistant, and in these situations I'll spend some time during our sessions coaching both of them, since together they represent one "system" of organisation and execution. If you think of your AI tools as "digital PAs", it's not hard to see that the need for clarity and coordination becomes essential between you and "them" as well.

In this way, with the enhanced execution abilities provided by AI, we all have to step up our leadership game, even as individual contributors. Because when action and even problem-solving becomes cheap, your value shifts to goal clarity, prioritisation, and team alignment.To put it another, more cynical way: if you're able to offload major parts of your decision-making to AI without consequences, your role is pretty replaceable.

Why GTD® Works for AIWorkflows

The GTD model is both an effective, time-tested paradigm for bringing clarity to execution, and deceptively simple. Its power lies in how it mimics the essential behaviours that promote good executive function in the brain.

The Five-Phase GTDWorkflow for AI Success

Each phase of the GTD workflow model helps you get clear, current, and creative about the business challenges you face. They form a model for effective delegation, whether to your own future self, another person, or a machine. They also shine a light on common failure points in AI workflow adoption:

●     Capture: Are you gathering up signals for action, or just noisy information and whatever data is to hand?

●     Clarify: Do you understand what your inputs mean and what really needs to be done?

●     Organise: Are the results of your (AI-assisted) thinking structured and recorded in a way that supports getting the right things done in the right timing?

●     Reflect: Are you stepping back often enough to reprioritise and course-correct? Do you have solid review checkpoints in place?

●     Engage: Are you taking action on what matters, or just reacting to what's most in your face?

The Delegation Illusion in AI

The AI era invites a dangerous illusion: that if you can delegate something to a machine, it's no longer your responsibility. But real delegation, as any leader knows, requires clarity of intent, alignment on outcomes, and appropriate oversight. GTD provides exactly this kind of scaffolding -- not only for teams, but for AI-augmented workflows as well.

AI's Blind Spots: The ContextProblem

GTD reminds us that what we do only has meaning in the context of why we're doing it. AI thrives on context, yet is oblivious to the petabytes of information we consume through our senses everyday in an office environment.

It can therefore suggest countless ways forward given a simple description of a task, but can't factor in the nuance of team dynamics, the political reality of your organisation, or even who's on holiday this week. It has been trained by getting rewarded for solving problems as stated in a tiny text window, not making things happen in the real wide world.

Clarity Beats Clever Prompts

As a result, the future of our effectiveness in the age of AI doesn't hinge on how clever your prompts are, or even how tight your integrations are between digital tools. It hinges on how clear your thinking is before you even fire up that automation or bot, and how well organised you are to ensure that you take the right next steps afterward to move things over the finish line.

If AI is indeed electricity, then clarity of purpose, consistent review, and last-mile human execution are the electronic components that turn this raw energy into powerful business results.

GTD is the circuitboard that makes AI workflows work. You can quote me on that.

At Next Action Associates, we're committed to exploring how AI integration can enhance workflows while maintaining the human clarity and strategic thinking that drives sustainable high performance. Learn more about our approach to AI and effective working practices that support both individuals and organisations in achieving their goals.

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