Why most people never take advantage of better. And lose time, opportunity, and success along the way.
Yesterday I tried an AI-powered tool to generate video clips from my podcast recording.
It felt like winning the lottery🤑
In a few minutes, I had 30 polished clips, ready to share. And they were GOOOD!
I posted one on Instagram, one on LinkedIn - done. A task that usually takes hours (in my case forever) - it was finished in less than 10 minutes!
But here’s the more interesting part.
I almost didn’t try it.
There was so much resistance in me.
Because it was new. Because most AI tools are overhyped and don't work as promised. Because I didn’t want to waste my weekend on something that might flop.
The brain hates waste. And you are already too busy to play.
That’s when I finally understood: this is why innovation in the workplace (or in life) is so damn hard for people (unless designed properly).
Even early adopters hate wasting time. Even innovators don’t want to break a working process. And when results are due on Monday, who wants to take a risk that might fail?!
Innovation is never efficient.
It’s not business as usual. It doesn’t fit neatly into your schedule. You can't control it. And that's why it's so scary. The first version rarely works the way you want. And you don't really know which version will.
Which is why you can’t treat innovation like regular work, or it will never happen.
What works instead?
Look at Google.
Know Gmail?
It was produced by people in their "tinkering time" - scheduled percentage of time at Google when people can work on whatever they want.
Scheduling time to tinker.
Low-stakes, no deadline. A couple of hours on the weekend. An evening here and there.
That’s how I approach it now as well.
I have workshops coming up, and I want them to be extraordinary. I want to bring somethng novel to blow people's minds while delivering value they came for and more.
And the way to prepare for that isn’t by gambling everything a week before. It’s by carving out small spaces to test, to play, to figure out what might not work.
Over to you dear reader,
Where in your life are you keeping yourself stuck because you never give yourself “tinkering time”?
Innovation isn’t just for companies. It’s for anyone who wants to stay relevant, keep growing, and not watch the world pass them by.
