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Why jobs are bad for your health and how to reduce your workload to 20 hours per week.

Last week, I talked about automation and said humans shouldn't touch what a machine could do.

I mean it as I say it. I want AI to take away our jobs.

Let me explain.

I grew up in Germany.

When it comes to jobs, the German government has a strange view of how business works.

For them, the purpose of a business is to provide jobs.

While it is great for people to have jobs, they are only a means to an end—to provide income for survival.

The real purpose of a business is to provide value for its customers.

Sustainable businesses also manage to make money, aside from their primary purpose. This way, they provide a living for the team, which creates value for the customers. In turn, they can continue providing more value.

This definition is essential to me!

A lot of people get it wrong.

They're saying that the purpose of a business is to make money for its shareholders or the people working in it.

This view leads to a toxic form of capitalism.

They are providing less value but making more money.

I will write about that in more detail at some point.

Coming back to jobs. The purpose of a business is not to create jobs.

This is because there are different types of work.

Not All Work is Created Equal

People need jobs to secure their survival, but no one wants to have a job.

A job is a work done solely to receive a wage in return. It is also known as wage labour or modern-day slavery.

People don't want to be slaves.

So I'm happy if AI, bots, automation, and machines take away all our jobs.

Just because there is work to do doesn't mean that his work is necessary, valuable, or enjoyable. I am looking at you tax accounting!

Meaningless work that doesn't provide value to others, and no one has fun doing it.

Every job consists mainly of meaningless work.

If AI takes over all our jobs, this frees more time for every one of us to do work we're passionate about. Meaningful work that provides value to others.

Imagine what we could achieve if every person would create value every day.

Every time a task comes up for me, I question it.

Is it necessary? If not, I don't do it at all.
Does it provide value? If not, I don't do it at all.
Is it enjoyable? If not, I find ways to make it enjoyable or let someone else do it. Hello AI.

Ask these three questions before putting a task on your to-do list.

This can quickly reduce your workload to less than 20 hours per week.

Try it yourself!

More free time creates room for more meaningful work.

Benefits of Meaningful Work Over Slave Labour

This brings me back to the discussion about the state of flow I talked about a few weeks ago.

Spending most of your working hours in a flow state has countless benefits.

People who do meaningful work are more engaged with their work.

This means they achieve a state of flow more easily.

And being in a state of flow means…

they have more fun with the work they do.
they have more energy after a task than they started with.
they experience less stress and don't burn out.
they output higher-quality results in less time.

As a result, your business can achieve better results with less workforce.

Chances are that you don't need more people.

Most businesses I see today are not ready to hire more people.

You need to clean up your mess before adding more people to it.

I sent you an easy-to-follow flow chart last week on optimizing your processes.

Let's zoom in on the automation part.

What Work Can a Machine Do?

Meaningful work is always creative work.

AI, software, bots, and machines are bad at doing complicated, one-off, and creative tasks.

They're very good at doing repetitive, tedious and simple tasks.

Even though generative AI can write blog posts with lovely images, the results are far from great.

AI is massively lacking in quality when it comes to…

Writing style,
Image composition,
Leading the viewer's attention,
And sparking the reader's attention.

This is where humans excel.

This is creative work.

If you feel threatened about AI taking your job, you're likely not providing real value.

When AI can take over your work, you're not doing that work at a level where it provides the value you think it does.

Ask yourself what you would instead want to do than do this job.

My game company used AI at some point to generate card and character images for our prototype.

This sped up iterating on new game mechanics and balancing new cards introduced to the game.

I wouldn't release this art to a final version for quality reasons, but it gave an impression of the final game.

And in games, just as in most other products, the feeling a player gets is vital.

Machines are also very good at tasks that require a lot of precision.

Ten years ago, I specialized in robotics and technical medicine at university. This was before I discovered my passion for UX.

Back then, robots could perform simple surgeries independently. They could make cuts 10x more precise than human surgeons.

They're still not used today.

It would cost a lot of jobs, and insurance would have difficulties blaming a machine when it makes a mistake.

And that even though humans make many more mistakes than machines.

A World Without Jobs

I want to eventually create a world without jobs where everyone follows their passion.

Everyone does the creative work they enjoy most and can provide the most value to others.

When there are no jobs anymore, we might finally pay for valuable work accordingly.

Work like nursing, food production, or social care might not be underpriced anymore.

Of course, we have a long way to go before we achieve this world.

Until then, we need to figure out how to handle the transition to this new society.

We need to figure out how…

People don't need to work for their survival anymore.
To heal and retrain people who got burned and hurt by the current system.
To remove all the work that is not creative and focus on the creative work.

The last point is why I write this newsletter, and it is something we can start doing today by automating more jobs.

I want to help you transform your company.

Build a creative, fun playground where you and your team can pursue your passions.

Let's build a better tomorrow together.

What non-creative work are you fighting with right now? Tell me in the comments below.