AI Made Me 10x More Productive—Until It Made Me Lazy
Let me just say it: AI is the best damn thing that ever happened to my productivity—and the worst thing that ever happened to my discipline.
Yep, you read that right. I’m all for automation and efficiency, but there’s a dark side no one warned me about when I started letting AI take the wheel. In the beginning, it was like having a personal assistant who was smarter than me—speeding up my work, making me feel like a productivity superhero. But before I knew it, I found myself relying on AI for everything. The result? I became lazier and more mentally passive than I’d ever been.
There’s no neutral stance here. I went from 10x productive to 10x lazy—and I’m not proud of it. What started as a productivity boost turned into a crutch. Now, I’m here to share why that happened, the lessons I learned, and what you can do to avoid the same fate.
This isn’t a love letter. It’s a cautionary tale—and it might just change the way you use AI forever.
Chapter 1: The Glorious High—AI as My Superpower
When GPT-3 dropped, I was frothing at the keyboard. Suddenly, I could brainstorm 50 blog titles in 5 minutes. Summarize books I hadn’t read. Reply to emails with the eloquence of a Victorian gentleman on Adderall. I felt like Tony Stark if JARVIS also knew marketing.
“I’m 10x-ing everything!” I told my friends, smugly sipping my oat milk latte while ChatGPT wrote my newsletter in the background. I was learning faster, writing more, even meditating more efficiently (with AI-generated mantras, because of course).
For a while, it was bliss. My to-do list looked like a graveyard of crushed goals.
Chapter 2: The Quiet Slump—Productive but Pointless
But then… something weird happened.
I stopped thinking.
No, seriously. I stopped solving problems. I just delegated them. Got a tricky coding error? Paste it into ChatGPT. Need a new business idea? Ask Claude. Not sure what to eat? Ask Gemini for a “nutritionally balanced meal plan for people who hate cooking and joy.”
At some point, I realized I hadn’t struggled with anything in weeks. And it hit me: AI made me productive, but it also made me intellectually soft.
Chapter 3: The Wake-Up Call (Aka The Embarrassing Moment I’m Still Cringing About)
I was invited to speak on a panel about AI in creative workflows. Naturally, I asked ChatGPT to write my script. (Meta, I know.)
Fast-forward to the event. Someone asks: “Can you walk us through the logic of how you trained your summarization tool?”
I blanked. Like, full deer-in-headlights. I’d literally copied and pasted someone else’s Python pipeline a month ago and told myself I’d “come back and learn it later.”
Spoiler: I didn’t.
I mumbled something about “transformer architecture” and “neural vibes.” I sounded like an undergrad trying to bullshit a PhD defense with Wikipedia quotes.
Chapter 4: The Lazy Loop
Here’s the trap no one talks about: AI doesn’t just automate tasks—it automates your curiosity if you’re not careful.
When everything feels “solvable” by typing a few words into a prompt box, your brain stops craving depth. You start chasing output over understanding.
I got lazy. Not in the lying-on-the-couch sense. I was busy. But mentally? Intellectually? I was phoning it in with auto-complete.
Chapter 5: What I Do Now (To Stay Smart and Productive)
I still use AI—hell yes I do. But with guardrails. Here's what I’ve changed:
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Manual First, AI Later: I try solving problems before asking the machine. If I get stuck for 20+ minutes, then I’ll prompt. It keeps my problem-solving muscles alive.
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‘Explain It Back’ Rule: Anything AI gives me—code, content, strategy—I force myself to re-explain it in my own words, out loud. If I can’t, I don’t use it.
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Creative Time = No AI Time: 1 hour every day where I write, draw, think, or build without any AI assistance. It's like brushing my teeth, but for my soul.
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Shame-Based Learning: I keep a “Didn’t Know Sh*t” journal. Every time I blank in a meeting or fake expertise, it goes in there. Nothing motivates growth like spicy humiliation.
Read a post where I talked about why selling digital assets is 90% marketing, 10% talent.
Final Thought: Don’t Let the Robot Steal Your Brain
Yes, AI is magic. It can make you a productivity god. But if you're not intentional, you'll become a glorified prompt monkey with no original thought and a slowly atrophying brain.
Let AI be your tool—not your crutch. Or as I tell myself now:
“Use AI like a sword, not a damn wheelchair.”
What You Should Try
- Go one day a week without using any AI. Just to feel your own thoughts again.
- Build something stupid without Googling anything. See how far you get.
- Every time you ask AI for help, ask yourself afterward: Did I actually learn anything?
That’s it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to fix a script I don't understand that AI wrote for me. Again.