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When AI Becomes Another To-Do List: The Productivity Trap Nobody Talks About

Ros: Have you ever had one of those moments where you feel like you’ve been incredibly productive, you’ve created all these plans and resources and ideas, but somehow your to-do list is actually longer than when you started?

Because that is something I’ve been noticing in my own business recently. And I wanted to talk about it, because I suspect I’m not the only one.

Welcome back to the Travel Agent Achievers Podcast. I’m Ros, and today we’re having a slightly different conversation about AI. Not which tool to use. Not ten prompts to write better social media posts. But what happens to us, as business owners, when we can suddenly create ideas and projects faster than we can actually implement them.

I’ve always been somebody who has ideas. ALL the time. Ideas for my travel business, ideas for Travel Agent Achievers, resources I want to create, systems I want to improve, opportunities I want to explore. Sometimes it feels like there isn’t an off switch.

A friend told me years ago about this thing called shower notes. I remember thinking, that is brilliant! Because I would get into the shower, start washing my hair, and suddenly remember everything. The follow-up I needed to send. A new idea for a programme. A solution to something that had been bothering me for days.

It was almost as though the minute I stepped away from the desk and stopped doing, I had space to think.

And as my businesses grew and life got busier, I felt like I lost some of that space. There was always an email, a client, a team question or the next thing that needed attention.

Then AI came along. And I was excited. Really excited. I thought: finally, something that can help me take all these ideas out of my head and actually do something with them.

And it has. Absolutely. But there’s another side of that story that I think we need to talk about.

In the last few months I’ve managed to move forward on things that had been sitting on my desk for what felt like forever. Resources, projects, processes and content that I genuinely wanted to create, but couldn’t find the time or headspace to finish.

I don’t want to diminish that. AI can be extraordinary. It can help us organise information, challenge our thinking, draft a first version, identify gaps and move much faster.

But here’s what started happening.

I’d have one idea. I’d open a chat and talk it through. That would become a plan. And the plan would reveal another opportunity. And then I’d think, oh, we could make a resource to go with that. Or a workshop. Or a new process. And before I knew it, I’d created another project.

Does that sound familiar?

And the funny thing is, I could walk away feeling like I’d done so much. Because I had! There were pages of ideas and plans and things that looked almost ready to go.

But the real world hadn’t necessarily caught up. The resource still needed reviewing. The email still needed sending. The system still needed implementing. The client still needed a response.

So I started asking myself: am I moving faster, or am I actually moving forward?

Those aren’t always the same thing.

I thought AI was going to help me stop being the bottleneck. But in some moments, it felt like it had helped me create a whole new bottleneck. I could generate more work than I could possibly complete.

And I think that’s where we need to be careful. Just because we CAN create something doesn’t mean we SHOULD. And it certainly doesn’t mean we have to do it right now.

I started having conversations with friends and colleagues who were using AI in their businesses too. And I heard things that surprised me.

People were talking about procrastinating. About feeling flat. About losing a bit of motivation or energy. About having so many ideas that they didn’t know which one to start with.

Now, I’m not saying AI is the cause of those feelings. There are many things that affect our energy, our mood and our motivation. But I wondered whether the sheer number of possibilities we can now generate was adding a new layer of pressure.

Because think about how this works in a travel business.

You could ask AI to help you create a marketing campaign for a particular destination. In a relatively short time, you might have an email series, social posts, a lead magnet, an event idea and a follow-up sequence.

Fantastic. But who’s going to check the details? Make sure it reflects your brand? Load the emails? Respond to enquiries? Measure whether it worked?

And that’s before we even get to your actual clients, bookings, suppliers, invoices and all the other parts of running a travel business.

We’re already busy. We already have a lot of decisions to make.

So what happens when we add a tool that can create a hundred more options?

Maybe we feel we should be doing all of them. Maybe we jump from one exciting idea to another. Maybe we become so busy planning that we don’t finish the things that matter.

And that is the distinction I want you to remember: more output doesn’t automatically mean more progress.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is NOT start another project.

This is also connected to a bigger conversation I’ve been having about the future of our industry.

I was speaking at WTE in Miami, and also at LOVE Mexico, where I was talking about business models for the next decade. And before I even came across a recent Travel Weekly article, I was already thinking about how much our industry is changing and what that means for us as business owners.

I saw an article with the headline, ‘Some businesses won’t be here in five years.’ That’s a confronting headline, isn’t it?

Now, I don’t want to turn today’s episode into a prediction about which businesses will survive, or repeat somebody else’s comments without the full context. But that headline raises an important question.

What are we doing TODAY to build a business that will be relevant, resilient and enjoyable to run in five or ten years?

And I don’t think the answer is simply: use more AI.

I think we need to be very clear about the value we bring, the clients we want to serve, the experience we deliver, the numbers behind our businesses and the way our businesses actually operate.

Technology can support all of that. But it doesn’t replace the need for direction.

There’s a difference between efficiency and effectiveness.

Efficiency is doing things faster. Effectiveness is doing the things that actually matter.

If I can produce a month’s worth of marketing content in an hour, that’s efficient. But if the message isn’t right for my ideal client, or I don’t have the capacity to follow up the enquiries, is that effective?

If I can create a new system in a day, wonderful. But if nobody in the business uses it, what have I achieved?

The question isn’t just whether our businesses will still be here in five years. It’s whether we’re building businesses we actually want to run for those five years.

And that brings me to the part of this conversation that’s been a little uncomfortable for me personally.

I’ve been working hard for a long time. And I genuinely love what I do. I love travel. I love my clients. I love mentoring and supporting other advisors. I love coming up with ideas and bringing things to life.

But I’ve noticed something interesting.

Sometimes when I’ve created time, when something that used to take hours suddenly takes much less, I almost don’t know what to do with the space.

Which is strange, because isn’t that what we’ve been asking for? More time. More freedom. Less pressure.

And yet, when we get a little bit of it, perhaps we rush to fill it.

I’ve also noticed moments when I stop. There might be a lot of things to do, and instead of steadily working through them, I leave them. Then they build up, and eventually I power through this enormous pile of work.

And afterwards I feel great because I’ve achieved so much.

But why did I need the pile-up first?

I’m still working that out. I don’t have a neat answer. But I do think it’s worth being honest about it.

Maybe some of us have become so used to being busy that being busy feels like progress. Maybe a full calendar feels reassuring. Maybe having lots of projects makes us feel we’re moving forward, even when what we really need is time to finish, reflect or simply rest.

And I don’t want the time AI saves me to automatically become another hour of work.

I want some of that time to go back into thinking. Into relationships. Into being with family. Into the parts of my business I love. And sometimes into doing absolutely nothing productive at all.

Because that is allowed too.

What would you actually like to do with the time you’re creating? That’s a question I think we should all ask ourselves.

So here’s something I’ve been doing consistently, and it’s been really useful.

I call it my CEO Daily Chat.

It’s not a fancy programme. It’s not a magic prompt that fixes everything. It’s a way I use AI as a thinking partner, so I can spend more time making decisions about my business rather than just creating more work inside it.

Because when you’re a travel advisor and a business owner, you wear so many hats. You’re the advisor, the marketer, the finance person, the operations manager, the problem solver.

But when do you actually put on your CEO hat?

When do you stop and look at the bigger picture?

That’s what I’m trying to create space for.

I can bring my ideas, my projects, my commitments and my questions into a conversation and ask: what actually matters here?

What needs my attention today? What is important but can wait? What have I committed to that doesn’t really support where I’m trying to go?

And sometimes the most useful answer isn’t another list of ten things to do. It’s a challenge to stop adding things.

I use it in four ways.

First, I capture what’s in my head. Sometimes there’s so much going on that getting it out of my head and into one place makes a difference on its own.

Second, I separate ideas from priorities. An idea can be a great idea and still not be a priority this week. That’s been an important lesson for me.

Third, I ask what will genuinely move the business forward. Not what will make me look busy. Not what sounds exciting in the moment. What will actually help my clients, my team, my profitability, my systems or the life I’m trying to build?

And fourth, I ask where I’m creating unnecessary work for myself. Where am I making something more complicated than it needs to be? What can I simplify? What can I leave alone?

And I want to be very clear: AI isn’t the CEO. I am. It’s not making decisions for me. It can misunderstand things, miss context or confidently suggest something that isn’t right for my business.

So I still use my judgement. But I find the conversation helpful because it gives me a place to think.

For example, imagine you’ve got three client proposals waiting for follow-up, but you’ve also had a brilliant idea for a new Instagram series. AI can help you create that series in minutes.

But a good CEO conversation might help you recognise that following up those proposals is the more valuable action today.

It’s not always the most exciting choice. But it might be the one that makes the biggest difference.

And that’s the shift I’m trying to make: from asking what else can I create, to asking what deserves my attention.

If you’re listening and recognising yourself in this conversation, I want to give you something really simple to try.

Three words: Capture, Clarify, Commit.

Capture the ideas. Get them out of your head. Write them down or put them into a conversation with AI. But don’t turn every single idea into an urgent task.

Clarify what matters. Ask whether this idea supports the business you’re building. Does it help your clients? Improve your systems? Protect your time? Improve your profitability? Is it relevant now, or can it wait?

And then commit. Choose one, two or perhaps three meaningful priorities. Decide what the next action is, and give yourself permission to finish those things before adding more.

You could start tomorrow with a five-minute CEO conversation.

Tell your AI tool what you’re working on, what deadlines you have and how much time you actually have available.

Then ask: ‘Based on my current goals and commitments, what are the three most important things I should focus on today? What should I put on hold? And where might I be creating more work than I need to?’

Don’t accept the answer blindly. Challenge it. Correct it. Use your own judgement.

And don’t make the CEO chat itself another complicated job to add to the list.

It’s supposed to help you think more clearly, not give you another thing to feel guilty about.

As I think about where our industry is heading over the next five or ten years, I don’t just think about the technology we’ll be using.

I think about the businesses we’ll be running.

Will we have stronger client relationships? Better systems? Healthier profitability? More time to think? More freedom to enjoy what we’ve built?

Or will we simply be doing more, faster?

I’m still learning how to use these tools well. I’m still someone who has lots of ideas. And I’m still figuring out what to do with some of the space I’m creating.

But perhaps that’s the point.

Maybe the greatest opportunity AI gives us isn’t the ability to do more.

Maybe it’s the opportunity to decide what we actually want to do.

And I’d love to hear from you. Are you finding AI is helping you make meaningful progress? Or are you ending up with more chats, more projects and more ideas than you can possibly implement?

And if you have created more time, what are you doing with it?

Come and share your experience with me, because I think this is a conversation we need to keep having.

Thank you for joining me on the Travel Agent Achievers Podcast. Until next time, keep building a travel business that works for you, not just because of you.