Reflection - AI Work and ADHD

Reflection

It's time to be more devoted to my work... AI has been a cool technology to watch and experience but one thing I'm allowing it to do to me is to kill my love for building... I feel like I'm arriving where I've already seen many talented developers get to -

Don't get me wrong, targeted and focused use of LLMs, with careful planning and time-boxing can be great, and has been for me. But I am a creature and prone to take the path of least resistance, and in many cases I'm just letting the LLM do the work. This is where the ADHD element from the title comes into play. Now, I'm not blaming ADHD for me being lazy, because I'm not sure laziness is the fairest descriptor of where I've been lately. A common issue for those with ADHD, maybe even the defining characteristic, is the black-hole that's present in the space where motiviation and reward belong in the brain. I've resonated with this thought for much of my life:

This is a core issue I am seeking to address in my life, and I guess in real-time reflection I should thank the hellscape of AI and LLMs for surfacing this pattern in my make-up today instead of when I'm in my 40s or 50s.

So where I've been is that I'll let an LLM write code and then I'll attempt to be validating the tests or example scripts I prompt it to generate, get comfortable with it, and ship.

But then in a few weeks the context of that code is all lost on me... I didn't craft it with blood and sweat and so when I'm asked a question about it I realize I'm barely fluent in a thing I built (did I even build it?)!

This is embarrassing and exhausting... I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about this, definitely not write about how I'm going to change my life over this dissastisfaction and from this day forward everything will be different...

But today does feel like an infelction point in a trajectory I've been on with AI and my job, so not starting today, but just a decision I am making today, is to time-box every task with vigorous commitment.