A paradox persists for companies: the more tasks we multiply, the less value we create. In the AI era, productivity can no longer be summed up at the intensity of the activity.
Opening ten tabs at the same time, responding to messages during a meeting, managing an avalanche of micro-fields in an emergency, it has become the daily life of many assets. A fragmented, exhausting – but valued form of work, because it gives the illusion of being productive. Except that this constant activity often masks the essential, the lack of time to do its job well.
A study carried out in May 2025 with more than 1,000 active ingredients comes to put figures on this paradox. Less than one in two employees (46 %) estimates to have enough time for creative or strategic work. And 22 % devote between 6 and 10 hours each week to administrative or repetitive tasks: e-mails, schedules, formats, reporting. Hours flights, often without impact, rarely valued.
The false comfort of permanent restlessness
What the study reveals is above all an increasing difference between what employees do … and what they would like to do. Almost 40 % say that mentoring, learning or feedback are the main engines of their feeling of productivity. But these key activities – sources of transmission, continuous improvement, cooperation – are systematically relegated to the background, behind more visible emergencies.
A third of employees say they feel less creative than before. And 43 % spend less than 5 hours per week in a strategic meeting or decision -making. The heart of work – think, decide, innovate – shrinks. It is no longer an isolated symptom, but a substantive trend.
The most striking is that this race to activity brings neither efficiency nor serenity. Only 26 % of respondents believe they have the tools and resources necessary to do their job well. And barely 32 % say they have enough time to do it properly. It is a double impasse: individual and collective. A trap in which energy is diluted, talents are exhausted, and organizations cap.
AI can restore time – provided you know what to do with it
Should we then automate everything? Not exactly. But some solutions exist, if they are well used. A study conducted at Dropbox is instructive: 96 % of employees use an AI each week to find information, write, code or structure reasoning. It is not a gadget. This makes them earn almost 8 hours per week on average. An entire working day, reinjected where it counts. In addition, teams of employees use in particular the OKR (objective Key Results) system as a process to clearly define the expected objectives and impact. They make it possible to define a direction, priorities and thus to reduce the time spent on the tasks of lower value.
But the released time is only useful if it is intelligently redirect: towards analysis, reflection, perspective, support. It is not a question of doing more tasks, but of putting value where humans make the difference.
Change what we measure, change what we value
The real difficulty may be due to our culture of work itself. We continue to enhance what is visible, measurable, quantifiable. The number of emails sent, the reactivity to notifications, the agenda occupancy rate has become social evidence of commitment. But by dint of measuring everything, we forgot to wonder what matters.
Which is slow, diffuse, silent – and yet decisive – too often goes under radars. A fundamental discussion, a careful rereading, an idea scribbled between two meetings: this is what, very often, makes the difference. These are the dead time, these breaths, which allow the emergence of value.
Real productivity is not displayed at the top of a dashboard. She nestles in a moment of calm found, in an improvised exchange that aligns a team, in a decision made at the right time, with the right people. It cannot be decreed: it is cultivated.
It’s time to put these moments back in the center. Working better does not mean doing less – but doing fewer unnecessary things. Free yourself from agitation to find meaning, clarity, impact.
In short, the question is no longer “how many tasks have you accomplished today?”, But “what really counted?”. As long as we continue to confuse activity and efficiency, we will risk running fast … in the wrong direction.
