Productivity Archives - Gérard Métrailler

November 10, 2026October 26, 2026

Lazy Work Now Looks Like Diligence

Every number in the operating review improved once the AI agents arrived. Nobody can tell you who read the work behind them.

TL;DR: AI agents made output nearly free, and most companies still measure and reward output. So activity numbers rise while the work that actually ships stays flat, and the gap is paid for in review time by the people who still read, with no report tracking it. Under that incentive, skipping the read is the rational choice. The cost shows up first as a longer review queue, then as rubber stamps. Track review wait time alongside output, and make sending unread work back offend no one.

October 6, 2026September 26, 2026

An Ode to (Choosing to Be) Busy

Working hours halved, and the complaint never moved. Busyness was doing another job.

TL;DR: Everyone is still slammed, though we work far fewer hours than our great-great-grandparents, and AI now turns out a first draft in minutes. Busyness is a choice, and a rewarded one: a full calendar makes its owner look scarce and in demand, no matter what got finished. The hours AI saves go straight back into other work, plus new work nobody owns. The exchange rate is cultural: Americans reward the overloaded week, Italians mark it down. My own model of a fully loaded leader’s week leaves two days open. Check next week against your prioritized list and what an agent could do; empty one recurring block.

September 22, 2026October 4, 2026

Everyone Bought the Computers. Six Sectors Got the Gains. Will AI Be Different?

A square poster of the frames illustration on a freestanding street billboard in early-morning Milan, with a pavement espresso bar three metres in front and every patron turned away from it toward the counter.

The computer revolution was in the 1990s. The AI transformation is playing out now, and hardly anyone has kept evidence showing which side they are on.

TL;DR: Your board will ask what the AI spending bought, and most companies can no longer answer, because nobody measured the work the deployments were about to change. The lag in returns is real, and it sorts the buyers from the beneficiaries. Six sectors out of sixty took 99% of the 1990s gain, and the heaviest spenders missed it. You cannot locate yourself in a distribution without a “before”, and almost nobody took one. Engineering and support kept timestamps, so those baselines can still be recovered.

August 11, 2026August 4, 2026

An Ode to (Valuable) Meetings

A large printed sheet lies on the table of an empty meeting room, showing a hand-painted hourglass on its side: a crowded left bulb, an almost empty neck, and an ordered right bulb of ticked-off shapes.

Almost everything that ruins a meeting is decided before anyone walks into the room.

TL;DR: In January 2023, Shopify deleted every recurring meeting with more than two people, and the instructive part was watching which ones people fought to get back. A meeting is a symptom: the damage was done days earlier, by someone dragging a block onto a calendar. Overstuffed invite lists are what an organization that writes nothing down looks like. If your AI avatar could attend without loss, that is a document with catering. The undelivered action item costs more than the silent attendee; it books the next meeting. Judge your AI by the meetings it prevents, then cancel one and watch.

May 26, 2026July 30, 2026

Where you work stopped mattering. When your AI resets started.

A close-up of an analog wall-mounted station clock with four colored arc-segments painted on the dial in place of hour numerals: three deep navy-blue segments and one mint-green segment in the lower-left position. The minute hand is slightly blurred, in motion.

The remote-versus-office debate has aged out; now, shifts run on an AI token clock you do not control.

Your AI tool reset now shapes your calendar. Claude meters in 5-hour windows, ChatGPT in 3. A heavy user on a Max plan can use an entire window in an hour, then wait four. This pacing splits your day into four shifts, making your meeting culture count against subscription tokens. Below is a proposed schedule for a modern knowledge worker, with three actions to try this week.