By Gabriel Soto
A marketing manager I spoke with recently had just finished a two-hour task in thirty minutes, thanks to a new AI-driven content tool. She was proud — until her boss, seeing the speed, handed her two more projects “while she had time.”
That’s the productivity trap in action: efficiency gains that should free us end up filling the same hours — or more — with extra work.
Economists call this the “rebound effect,” and it’s been quietly shaping labor markets for over a century. The technologies that make us faster, more accurate, or more organized can paradoxically tighten the workload rather than loosen it.
From the Cotton Gin to Cloud Software
This isn’t a new story. The cotton gin sped up processing but spurred higher production targets, not shorter days. Spreadsheets eliminated hours of manual bookkeeping, but finance departments didn’t shrink — they expanded into more complex analysis.
The modern version plays out in digital tools that automate email sorting, generate meeting notes, or produce draft presentations in seconds. Theoretically, this should mean more free time. In practice, it often means more deliverables and tighter deadlines.
The Economic Incentive Problem
The core issue is incentives. In most organizations, output is rewarded, not time saved. When a worker becomes more efficient, their capacity increases — and managers, under pressure to maximize resources, fill that capacity with more work.
On a macro scale, higher productivity boosts GDP, but without intentional policy or cultural shifts, it doesn’t translate into reduced working hours. Instead, it can entrench the expectation of constant availability and output.
The Hidden Costs
Over time, the productivity trap can lead to:
Burnout: Faster cycles leave less downtime between projects.
Erosion of quality: Quantity pressures can crowd out deep thinking and creativity.
Work creep: Tasks bleed into evenings and weekends as “small extras” pile up.
Ironically, these effects can eventually undermine the very productivity gains that caused them.
Escaping the Trap
Breaking the cycle requires structural change:
Redefine performance metrics: Reward outcomes, not volume.
Cap workloads: Treat efficiency gains as grounds to reduce task lists, not expand them.
Encourage protected time: Policies that safeguard breaks and non-work hours help ensure efficiency benefits the worker, not just the employer.
Some companies are experimenting with “time dividends” — if a new tool cuts a task by 30%, employees reclaim part of that time as reduced hours. Early trials suggest this can sustain morale and output without overloading staff.
A Cultural Shift
Ultimately, escaping the productivity trap isn’t just an economic question — it’s cultural. We have to decide whether working smarter is meant to help us work better lives, or simply work more.
Until that shift happens, each new efficiency tool risks becoming another rung on a ladder that only climbs higher, never letting us step off. The challenge is to ensure the climb is worth it — and that we sometimes get to take the elevator down.
