Courtesy of Amy Morin
"I've never felt more burned out than since I started using AI."As a psychotherapist and the author of "The Mental Strength Playbook," I've been hearing some version of this from the startup founders who reach out to me for mental strength coaching, to help them stay strong during the age of AI.Most of them are frustrated that AI isn't handing them back the time and energy they thought it would. Many of them feel less productive and more emotionally exhausted now than they did a year ago.Here's how AI is contributing to burnout in founders1. It took away the easy tasksAI allows us to get rid of repetitive, boring work — tasks like cleaning up a spreadsheet or reformatting slides. However, these tasks also give our brains a much-needed break, so we can recharge in between tasks that require a high cognitive load.With AI taking on many of those tasks, many founders are finding their workday is now made up entirely of decisions that really matter, with few breaks. They're working at full intensity all day.2. It replaced the things we were trying to get better atAI creates a strange dynamic where your output may increase, but you feel less capable as your skills stay the same.Before mass AI adoption, if someone wanted to get better at sales, they might struggle for a while to create better scripts. With practice, they'd improve over time.
