Every productivity bro wants to automate. Every founder is shipping some “this saves you 10 hours a week” thing. Me? I just want to feel something again.
Somewhere between my tenth Zapier workflow and the fifth Notion template that promised to fix my life, it hit me. I don’t want more automation. I want fewer things that need automating.
Because the best parts of life were never efficient in the first place. You can’t track them, and they don’t run on a schedule. That is exactly what makes them the best parts.
Take restaurants
There used to be a menu, and a server who actually knew it. Now it’s a QR code and someone too busy to look up.
When I walk into a restaurant, I don’t want to scan anything. I want to talk to the chef, tell him what I’m in the mood for, and let him tell me what to order. That’s romance. That’s real UX. Not a soulless, WiFi-dependent PDF pretending to be hospitality.
I wanted my AI to feel like a friend, not a dashboard
When I built our AI inbox agent, I didn’t want it to send me summaries. I wanted it to call me. Like a friend. Like a bandhu. Like a slightly dramatic Punjabi concierge who clocks the exact moment I’m procrastinating and says:
“Bhai, just read this one. The rest can wait.”
I want automation to serve the soul, not replace it. Some things still deserve the manual touch.
- Writing a birthday message in your own words.
- Saying Waheguru without a calendar nudge.
- Giving feedback with your eyes, not emojis.
- Calling someone instead of DMing them.
- Sitting with a problem instead of rushing to solve it.
Don’t outsource your joy
That’s the line I come back to every time I’m tempted to automate one more thing. Let AI make the work easier. Just don’t let it make you numb.
So yes, I’m building tools. But I’m also holding space for the chaos, the poems, and the pauses. Not everything needs to be fast. Some things just need to be felt.
Originally published on Mataroa.