My mind is generally, always racing. Potential business ventures, community projects, internal tools for my own productivity. Personal errands/tasks I've been putting off for too long.
All of this constantly attacks me in any moment of silence, a swarm all the things I need to get done. It's often good for productivity but hobbles my ability to focus. I used to quell all of this by saying "there's only 24 hours in a day, you can't do everything". Then suddenly, agents came along. Untiring workers that can do almost anything you tell them to, all the time, at the click of a button. A hyperactive, overoptimizers dream.
6 months out, I've realized they may have given me an illusory sense of productivity. They've hotwired all of my neurons to thinking "just one quick prompt and we can explore this cockamamie scheme". All the effort I put into teaching myself to zoom out, find what matters, and focus on one thing has recently fallen by the wayside under the pretext of "the old rules are out, there's now a paradigm shift".
It's led to incredible outcomes for sure! I've rebuilt old hobby projects that took me years and scratched idea itches that I always thought about.
But at the same time, I've realized it's paralyzed me. I have 20 Warp tabs perpetually open working on at least 5 projects at the same time. Premeet briefings, small research projects on an idea, a car mechanic RFP, an insurance claim claude-in-chrome instance. Within every project, their is 3 separate tabs because why do things serially when you can do them parallel? The constant need to optimize time has led me to open a new task on every turn of the agent.
If I sit back and really think about it, how much did I actually get done? 10% of each task? Am I really net-net more productive? Or have I just opened 20 can of worms, doomed to never get to prod?
The Prophet says:
اِسْتِتْمَامُ الْمَعْرُوْفِ خَيْرٌ مِنِ ابْتِدَائِهٖ
Completing an act of kindness is better than starting one.