Three AI tools that actually save time — and one that doesn't
After four months of daily use: the tools that are still installed, and the popular one I deleted again.
Before I dare call something a “time-saving tool”, it takes four months of use. Very few AI offerings survive that test — not because the technology is bad, but because most of them solve a problem I didn’t have.
What’s still installed
Three categories have survived: speech-to-text for long documents, photo sorting (tags, faces, duplicates) and summarizing long emails or documents. All three do one thing well, and they do it without me having to set up workflows every week.
The common denominator is that I hand over a concrete job — not “be creative” or “help me”. A name, a file, a recording. The answer comes fast, and I can check myself whether it’s right.
What I deleted again
The most popular tool in the category I deleted was an all-in-one assistant that would handle everything from trip planning to budgeting. It made a good case for itself, but everything required explaining context I already had — so it became an extra step everywhere.
A tool has to be faster than the problem it solves — otherwise it’s a hobby project.
The lesson
Spend two weeks on one tool instead of two weeks on five. The time-saving tools are the ones that take one area of work and make it markedly easier — not the ones that promise to take over everything.
