I’ve been using the term “donkey work” a lot lately, and some of you have been asking what I mean by it. Fair enough. Let me explain.

When I started paying attention to AI, I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want it writing for me. I didn’t want it making my videos or drafting my newsletters. That’s the work I love. That’s the stuff I wake up wanting to do. If I hand that off to a machine, what’s left?

But I also realized I spend hours every day on stuff that has nothing to do with creation. Resetting a customer’s password. Chasing down links for a blog post. Formatting show notes. Updating spreadsheets. Processing email. None of that is creative work. It’s necessary, but it’s not why I’m here.

That’s donkey work. The administrative tedium that fills your day and keeps you from the work that actually matters to you.

And here’s what I’ve figured out. The current state of AI is really good at donkey work. Not perfect, but good. If you spend some time setting things up, you can get AI to handle a surprising amount of the tedium.

I’m talking about real, practical stuff you can do today. Not someday. Today.

The big AI companies are so busy talking about artificial general intelligence and curing cancer that they’re skipping over the boring part.

Right now, Claude can process my email. It can triage my task list. It can process a customer service request. It can look up information I need for a blog post in seconds instead of the 20 minutes it used to take me. That’s not science fiction. That’s today.

I don’t look at AI as a replacement for me. I look at it as a way to get my time back. Every hour I save on donkey work is an hour I can spend writing, recording, or teaching. That’s the trade I’m making, and so far it’s a good one.

You’ll be hearing more about this from me. I’m living at the sharp end of this stuff every day, testing what works and what doesn’t.

But I wanted to put a name on the concept because I think it changes how you think about AI. Stop asking “Can AI do my job?” Start asking, “Can AI do the parts of my job I don’t want to do?”

For a lot of us, the answer is already yes. The solutions to your tedium problems might be closer than you think.