What is AI procrastination and do you suffer from it too?

You may or may not have come across this term before, but we guarantee you definitely know someone who suffers from it.

What's that?

AI procrastination is a behavior where people spend time experimenting, debugging prompts, or searching for a "better" AI tool instead of actually working. In this case, while there is a sense of doing work, there is no actual productive work.

Often this phenomenon appears together with the similar concept of AI Delay. In this case, it's the tendency to delay tasks because we believe the AI will handle it better later.

A classic example is a developer who, instead of writing code, sometimes spends hours debugging a prompt, but never gets to the real work. This is mostly in the belief "I'll set it up once and then it will work itself out".

There are even studies that show that excessive use of AI directly correlates with higher rates of procrastination.

Related to this is the theme of cognitive degradation - delegating tasks to AI leads to the stifling of critical thinking and deeper analysis. As the mind becomes more passive, the ability to independently assess the quality of the output, reflect or propose one's own solutions declines. This raises a vicious cycle: higher delegation → lower mental demand → lower motivation to use one's intellect → further procrastination.

MIT studies with EEG showed that people using ChatGPT had the lowest brain activity and performed the worst in a follow-up test without AI.

While it may seem like AI is actually slowing down our work right now, it's not, but it can be. Instead, in many cases, AI helps us overcome procrastination and move on with the task at hand. But the key is to use it correctly.

Why does it happen?

• Novelty effect: AI is a new and fascinating tool for many people, which is one of the reasons why we often can't tear ourselves away from it. The brain responds to novelty with curiosity, and so we are naturally drawn to trying out new models, tweaking prompts or looking for the "best" solution. This easily creates a sense of productivity - we experiment, we feel like we're pushing ourselves, but the task itself remains stationary.
• FOMO: We feel like everyone is already using AI, which puts pressure on us to not only use it, but to be better at it than everyone else.
• Perfectionism: AI gives us the ability to come up with an infinite number of versions, which we often try to push to perfection. It gives us the impression that there is always a better version.

How do you know if you're suffering from it?

We've put together a short checklist that can help you discover if AI procrastination is affecting you or your team.

• I'm always testing new AI tools, but I don't implement much in real work. (Yes/No)
• I feel productive when playing around with AI, but the results often don't progress. (Yes/No)
• I'm postponing tasks because I want to fine-tune the AI process first. (Yes/No)
• When the AI doesn't work, I'm paralyzed and wait for it to "get better". (Yes/No)

If you answered YES to 3 or more questions, you are probably concerned about AI procrastination. But that doesn't mean you should stop using it.

How to avoid it?

Have clearly set goals

• Define what you expect from AI. For example: I want to save time writing documentation and generating tests.
• Set your metrics. If you can, regularly measure how AI is contributing to your productivity.

Choose your key tools

• Stick to AI tools that work for you instead of jumping between ten platforms.
• Introduce tools gradually and monitor their impact.

Think of AI as a teammate

• Don't rely on AI to do all the work for you.
• Always stay actively engaged and think of it only as a tool to get the result faster or better.

Dedicate time to innovation

• The goal is certainly not to stop looking for new tools and trying new practices that will move you forward. The key is not to spend too much time on it. Also, don't forget to set a deadline for testing new processes or tools.

Educate the team about the risk of AI procrastination

• Share your experiences as a team and set common guidelines for when AI really helps.

Conclusion

AI procrastination is often one of the reasons why, when AI is introduced in companies, work initially starts to take longer instead of making employees more efficient. You can prevent it by implementing AI correctly and setting clear goals and boundaries in its use. Perhaps like any revolutionary phenomenon, AI can be a good servant but a bad master.

If you are still hesitant about how to implement AI correctly, get in touch. We help companies use AI as their competitive advantage.