Last week was a big one.
I moved through analysis, content, ideation… the kind of work that would normally take me days of circling, drafting, second guessing. By Friday I realised I’d pushed through what would usually be a week, or even a month.

And instead of feeling proud, I felt… off.

Not tired in a satisfying way. Not even overwhelmed exactly. Just a bit flat.

I started thinking about wonder

It came from a small moment. I caught myself almost instinctively reaching for AI to answer something that was… interesting. Not urgent. Not important. Just something I could have sat with. And I didn’t.

I solved it in seconds.

It made me pause, because I think there’s something valuable in that space we skip – the wandering, the wondering, the slow connecting of ideas. The bit where you don’t quite know yet.

AI is very good at removing that. And I’m not sure I want it removed all the time.
I read a while ago about the importance of wonderment, long before the fast moving train that is AI today. Even just having the internet available to us to search and find answers quickly pulls us away from the wonderment, the moments to pause and just consider things and not have everything instantly solved. It’s important.

The pull of speed

There’s also something happening in the background.

Ask → receive → refine → generate.

It’s fast. It’s smooth. And it feels good.
We know there’s a biochemical layer to that – the dopamine hit of immediacy, of progress, of something appearing instantly.
Over a week, I could feel how easy it was to stay in that loop.

Not because I needed to. Because it was there.

Use it. But don’t hand over the thinking.

I genuinely think AI is incredible. I use it daily for my work in many ways and am generating output that compliments and speeds up my work.
It removes friction from repetitive work. It helps get started faster. It can scale effort across a team in a way we haven’t had before.

But I don’t want my role in that to become purely coordination.
I don’t want to now just upload data, files, or create agents and let things happen for me.

Setting prompts. Triggering outputs. Managing the flow of content.

That’s useful, but it’s not the same as doing the thinking.

The parts I value most in my work are still the slower ones:

• pushing back on an idea
• sitting with something that doesn’t quite make sense yet
• noticing what the real question is underneath the first one
• workshopping and having those round table discussions with colleagues and clients

Those don’t happen at speed.

Keeping the brain strong

I’ve also been thinking more broadly about this. I have read for a long time about brain fog, attention spans, even cognitive decline as we move through different life stages. Perhaps being middle age some of these are on my mind.

Whether every label is precise or not, the core idea resonates: we need to keep using our brains properly.

Not just skimming. Not just reacting. Actually thinking.

Because it’s no different to anything else (our joints and muscles). If we stop using strength, we lose it.

What I’m adjusting

I’m not stepping away from AI. Last week proved how valuable it can be.

But I am being a bit more deliberate:

• catching when I’m reaching for an answer instead of thinking
• letting some questions sit for a while before solving them
• noticing where the friction is — and not always removing it
• being honest about whether I need the output, or just the feeling of producing something

Last week was fast.

This week I’m more interested in what happens if I keep the tools… but bring back a bit of the space.

Because I don’t just want to produce more.

I want to keep thinking well.