Nobody can outwork AI, so stop trying

Thanks for having me. A pleasure to be here.

Yes, it's a lot of different things coming together. complexly simple is a sentence that I use when I was growing up, like even for my high school years, it was how I ended every journal entry on my diary. so I've always had that kind of reflection of life of how life is very complex, but when you break it down, the important things are very simple. So whenever I did a journal entry, I always ended with that, like complexly simple. So it has been something that has followed me my whole life. And when I started working my career in business management, I was very drawn to working with nonprofits. and I started seeing that complexity of you have a social impact organization or, you know, a purpose-driven organization with this very complex mission. You want to change the world, you wanna change a system, right? And it is so hard to make that impact happen. And through working with them, I started seeing the same things like We need some very simple things as foundation for you to be able to create that complex idea. And when I was thinking about a name to start organization, that name just came to me directly. It's like that's exactly that. Life is complex. There's lots of multiple pieces that we need to juggle, but in the end the solution should be simple if we want it to work.

So the main thing I've noticed with all the nonprofits or you know founder led businesses that I work with is that when things get busy or start looking complex, they all think they just have to work harder. So they start working overtime and weekends and they want to say yes to more projects. They're very ambitious organizations, very high achievers. And at the end, you just end up getting to the verge of burnout because you can't just keep doing more and more without building the capacity for that. And What I've noticed is that you need really need to think about growth in a as something that you design, not just something that happens. So when you're launching something new, it's thinking about how can I have the space for this to sustain growth. And that can be your internal processes, that can be the team that you bring, the tools that you use. And it's really not thinking that you can just push harder. You need to think smarter and you need to really design the path forward.

I think we all have experienced burnout, especially if you're an entrepreneur. I've always been very purposeful and passionate about the work that I'm doing. So you never want to say no to something that has a good impact, right? Like you always want to make it happen. And for me, burnout came very different because I wasn't just completely crashing. It was just like I wasn't thinking as fast and I wasn't enjoying my work as much as I used to. So I really got stuck with like I want to be at my best a hundred percent of the time. And when I couldn't be at my best, I really felt like something needed to change. so it's been a a lot of like a self journey of what do I need to be healthy? What do I need to be able to be at my best? And sometimes that meant saying no to things. And that was the first advice that people gave me. It's like you can't do everything, you need to say no. And I just hate that. It's like I really wanna do everything that matters to me. So it became more about how do you do it by creating space or how do you do it by finding pockets of time and alternating space for things. So what has been very important to me is figure it out like what are the things that I'm passionate about that have the highest impact that really need me to be the person doing it. And then the secondary thought is for the other things that just have to happen, who can help me get there or what processes can make it faster? and now over the last few years, like what AI systems or automations can help me with that? So I'm one of those people that got very excited when AI came because it was such an enabling tool. And I immediately said, like, if I have the right processes, the right documentation, all of these pieces that I'm not passionate about can get done while I'm focusing on the things that I love. And I think that's the key to burnout. You burn out when you're not doing the things that you're passionate about and you're just getting stuck doing other things. So I really focus on building the support system and kind of that foundation so that I can focus on the things that I love.

think AI has been such a controversial topic, but it's about how people are implementing it. The way I see AI is it AI is a tool that enables you to do things that are very human, right? Like AI is not replacing human tools or human activities, right? My my writing is very reflective. So that's something that I want to have time to do. I want to have time to sit down and write when I'm writing a blog post. but taking time downloading my Amazon invoices for my bookkeeper. That is not something that I wanna do. So those are the type of things that I I wanna use AI for, right? Like what are the repetitive tasks that don't require any reasoning or any judgment? What are what are the things that we can automate? because it it's not interesting work, right? Like just copying and pasting something, just downloading from one place to add it to another, that has no value added in the task itself. It's just something that needs to get done. so when you save hours by saying, you know. I know on the first day of every month my bookkeeper will have all the receipts and this is already done. So I can sit down and write. that's a great value. other things that I have really liked using AI for is is some of the prototyping of ideas, right? Like we're like, I have three different ways. I just want to talk it out and see what they would look like. Just having the soundboard, I think the the models are very good for some of that initial feedback that you can just kind of initiate some ideas before you take them to life. so I think i it's really an opportunity to fast track launching new businesses. And when you're small, right, like if you have thousands of dollars and you can have a team doing all those things, that's amazing. But that was one of the biggest bottlenecks of nonprofits or social enterprises, or when the founder is the business, there is no staff, you just become limited by your size. And I think with AI now, you don't have to be. Like if you use AI in a smart way. you can create a lot of very good impact without losing the human side of that, right? Like you can really just tune in on the things that make us human and connect with that and then let AI take the the boring, repetitive administrative things that we don't enjoy to begin with.

Absolutely. That is one of those perfect examples, I think, of AI helping you be more human. Right. I used to always be the person with the notebook because I wanted to capture all the ideas, but I didn't always have the chance to raise my hand and say what I was thinking because I was too busy taking the notes. so when you know that I don't need to worry about the notes that's being captured, you can actually just active listen to what people are saying in the room and you can think and process and express yourself. Connected to that, I love how AI can also help follow ups. Right. Like you would go and you have those meeting notes and depending on your day, if you had too many meetings and it's been a busy week, that notebook is just gonna sit on your desk forever. Versus now I can have my, you know, AI assistant telling me, Hey, by the way, you had this conversation last week. You promised you were gonna do this and this and you haven't done it yet. Do you want me to add that to your schedule? So i it it allows you to follow through and you don't have to focus so much on that. memorizing and transferring things from a notebook to your calendar or to your to-do list, those parts can be automated. So I you know, in an ideal work day, like I can sit down, open my calendar and I already know what I have to do on and, you know, what are the things that I need to focus on today. And I can just be very, very present and intentional about where my time goes.

Think it really depends on the type of client and their values. And that is something that we really we design our systems based on the client, right? I have a couple of clients that they are creative people in general, like they work with art, they work with music. So for them, they're like, No, we're not using AI. Like we want all that we're producing all of our stuff to be really human and human only, and we respect that. So we'll build systems around that. but there are other clients that they say, I I need to focus on, you know, engaging with others, on managing my community, on running my events. So I am okay with AI doing this and that. And there's limits to everything. I think like AI, we are at this good spectrum right now that you can choose to just use AI to manage your inbox, or you can choose to really embed AI on your marketing and communications. And that all has to be tailored to the business that you offer, but also for your audience, right? how is your audience gonna receive if They notice that all your marketing is being done with AI. Is that something that your your audience is going to be receptive to, or is that gonna actually remove some businesses for you because you're doing that? So it's a great tool, but as with any tool, not everybody needs the same set, right? So you really need to decide for your specific business how does AI fit in and where does it make sense to use AI versus where does it make sense to stay with human led activities.

So I don't think there is a a template answer. The the way I always like to start is designing your workflow. And I think that's one of the things that people have been doing that it's not as beneficial to them is that they just start with, I heard that I should be using an AI note taker or I heard that I should be using AI for that. But where you really start is your process design, right? Like you you use AI the same way that you would hire A person, you would use AI the same way that you do your organizational charge. What's the function of that AI agent? What are they here for? Who's accountable for that? Right? Like if you have an AI agent but nobody's supervising or nobody's providing input, it's not gonna be able to run. So I always like to start with the process design and the client journey, right? Like, so where's your audience coming in? What are the touch points inside your operations that your audience gets involved? And once you have that design process, then you can say, For this specific step, does it make sense to be human? Does it make sense to be an automation? Can we use an AI agent? So it it really doesn't start with, hey, we should implement AI. It starts with, do you know your process? Do you know your workflow? And then for each of those steps, can it be delegated? Can it be automated? Does it make sense to use an AI agent? Or do you need a human for that?

I think people are gonna have this shift of rediscovering what is human essence, right? Like what is the things that we do in business and in personal life that are uniquely human. and that is one of the things that I love about AI. I think when I read a text and it's like, this was not AI generated, this was actually written by a human, it has so much more value. how people engage in posts or in communications, right? Like it's very more meaningful when you see that. and what I've been seeing is people actually saying, I will never keep up with AI. Like there's a computer that can work forever and never stop. So it helps with people that were very competitive and they're like, I'm a high achiever, so I'm gonna do more. And now you're realizing that you're not gonna win that fight. So take care of yourself. And I think that's where we're gonna start seeing more. There's gonna be a lot more conversations about culture and about work life balance, well being of founders or employees or your team. and that's what I'm most excited about. I'm excited for the conversation to shift from pure productivity to actually culture and well being out of everybody involved.

goal is to help make the world a better place by allowing people to do what they love. I'm a firm believer that when you're working with something that you're passionate about, you bring a different energy to it. and then things flow and things grow. So I really believe that when people are working for causes that they're passionate about and they're doing work that they love, everyone thrives around it. So that that's our vision. It's like helping founders or nonprofits that have a big goal, a big ambitious goal. And saying how do we make you get there? How do you make how do we make the time for you to be able to focus on this thing that you're so passionate about? Because if you can help you focus on that, you're gonna make a difference in the world.

my website, so www.complexly simple dot ca. I'm also on LinkedIn and Instagram, so at Marcella Killen, you can always reach out to me on that account as well.

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.