Where does it end, and who is it for?

I'm writing this after a walk. Well, technically I talked most of it out loud on the walk, into a voice memo, a little out of breath because I was going up a hill. Some thoughts need to move through the body before they can make it to the page, and this was one of them.

Here's what got me moving… Earlier that morning I came across a post with a hook that basically said: I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm deleting Canva. Swipe through and it becomes clear what's really happening. It's an invitation to a mini course on how to prompt AI to make your designs. Not little elements or a quick poster — full-on course assets! What used to take hours now took five seconds.

And I just… UGH. I felt it in my whole body.

I want to be clear that I don't know her, and I can't judge what she's going to do with all that open time. Maybe it's something beautiful! But the post stuck to me, and I've learned that when something sticks like that, it usually has something to teach me.

The Labor Behind Five Seconds

Two things hit me at once.

First, canceling Canva in the name of AI actually hurts artists directly. Canva does a pretty good job of paying people for the assets behind its paywall. That's real money going to real creators.

Second, calling it a win because it took me five seconds erases all the labor that goes into design. Designers, website designers, social media managers — people like us, people like my team — have spent so much time on their skills. Some have spent so much money and so many years on their degrees.

Someone in the comments asked the question: where do you think the AI learned all of that? From those people. From the many, many millions of people who dedicated their lives to the craft. And now the money goes to the companies that built the tools instead of the people the tools learned from.

And if you're paid by the hour like so many of us in the service world, it gets even weirder. Our whole sense of what's possible in an hour has gotten skewed, and the skill it takes to do something well gets harder to see.

It's wrong from pretty much every angle.

Soooooo what are we doing with all that time?

Another way I've been challenging my own instant gratification these days is through 35mm film. My partner gifted me a film camera for my birthday and I am in love with the process of not knowing how a photo is going to turn out. I'm so happy the rainbow showed up on this one.

More Is More Is More

Being able to speed up the process could mean one of two things. Either we get time back in our day (which, amazing!), or we look at what used to take a week, realize it takes a day now, and fill the other six days with more.

I fear we're doing the second one.

Think about everything that used to go into making an online course. Now you can make one in a day. Which is great… but it also turns into an echo chamber. A mini course teaching people how to make fast mini courses, so they can make their own and sell it to the next person who wants to save time. And on and on. Where does it end? And who is it for?

Even when people don't actually have the hours to make all of it, just knowing what's possible changes things. Oh, now I can code. Now I can be a designer. Now I can do this, and this, and this. That knowing doesn't make life easier or lighter. It adds to the mental load. Suddenly there's so much more on your plate, even if it's only sitting on the plate in your mind.

Ideas Need Rest to Land

My brain loves closed loops. Finishing something and feeling that sense of completion is one of the most regulating feelings in the world for me. And lately, it's been really hard to come by.

Even with the help of AI, I can only move at the pace I can move. That doesn't mean the people I'm working with aren't moving faster. A project that used to take a month moves quicker now, and once someone knows okay, Jenna's got it, their brain gets to move on to — what else, what else, what else? By the time I close one loop, there are ten new ideas waiting.

I get it. I have that brain too! I'm not blaming anyone (and honestly, I can't blame AI 100% either, life has just been really full). But I keep wondering where our brains are supposed to go when the work gets lifted off of them.

I think the answer is rest. Regulation. And yes, I know ideas come from rest and regulation, so maybe that doesn't fully track. But I think that's kind of the point. The ideas that really matter — the ones you're meant to lead with — need somewhere to land. They need you to live with them for a while. And the people you're sharing them with need time to receive them, too.

If you share your ideas for a living (coaches, healers, artists, writers, I'm looking at you ❤️), you don't have to outpace yourself to keep leading. Slow was always allowed. Rest was always radical.

I always look to my cat, Naki, for rest inspiration. She literally follows the sun all day long - moving from room to room. Sometimes I lay down next to her, because I know she is a teacher of mine.

How We Actually Use It

I'm not anti-tool. I'm autistic and I have ADHD, and I use AI as an accommodation. It helps me keep track of notes, map out a clear path for client sessions, and know what's happening where, for everyone, at any given time. That takes a lot of work, and I'm so grateful for the support. With consent, we also use it at Have Cake to process recordings and pull transcripts so we can build voice profiles out of our clients' real words.

But there's a difference between using a tool to save time and using it to skip steps entirely. Saving time is a gift when it gives you room to breathe. Skipping steps takes away the parts where the meaning actually gets made, and when everyone skips the same steps with the same tools, everything starts to look the same. (You can already clock certain logos as AI from a mile away.)

That's why I believe so deeply in hiring people for their gifts and talents. If we say yes to everything, what's next? We don't even type anymore, we just think it and it appears? Then we'd all be building whole worlds inside our own minds and never talking to each other. We'd get so insular. Working with people is how we stay connected, and how we remember we don't have to do it all alone.

We wrote out exactly how we use AI at Have Cake Creative, and the lines we won't cross. You can read it here.

This doesn't feel like the end of this thought loop by any means, I think there is a lot further to explore. But I wanted to get it out of my head and into the world while it's still warm.

With Love,

Jenna

P.S. As you look at your own work right now, what would you do with saved time if you didn't fill it? Is there an idea you've been rushing that's asking to be lived with a little longer? And if you're feeling the what else, what else, what else — what would it feel like to close just one loop this week? Take some time to sit with that here ❤️