Comment by gtowey
6 hours ago
> I find that AI is very useful for getting me past the 'blank page' writing block, but inevitably it writes in ways I would never, and so I end up editing it heavily. But, for me, a boy with ADHD, editing something is infinitely easier than writing it from scratch.
As someone who also has ADHD, I would beg you to reconsider this strategy.
Getting the first thoughts down on paper is the hardest part, especially for those who may have trouble with focus, but that's exactly why you should practice it!
It's 90% of the task, it's where you have to practice executive function to plan what you're going to write in the overall broad sense. Please don't give up on it and hand that task over to the LLMs There are a lot of strategies you can use to break through that barrier and you'll be better off by strengthening that muscle instead of leaving it to wither.
adhd'er here too. maybe the practice is good, but it takes a lot of energy, which is finite. i find that leaning on my strengths gets me far, far better results than trying to get up to par with everyone else on things im bad at. if a tool just lets you get started, and you can breeze through getting started on things that you might otherwise just never even start, it seems like using the tool is the way to go.
ive been fighting the way my brain works my whole life, and only recently have i switched to trying to work with the way it wants to work. i get so many more things done that are important to me, and i get them done without the implicit "i need to flagellate myself with this thing i hate because there is something wrong with me" that comes with those fights.
and yeah, the ai's come with their own problems. but the trade is so exponentially in the direction of being worth it. even just the being a decent rubber duck aspect of them can keep me on a task when i would never otherwise hope to see it through.
Exactly
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I can do it. It's not like I'm not capable. I've spent 38 years 'strengthening that muscle', heh.
But I also have an automatic car, even though I know how to drive stick.
Tools are tools, and how you use them is the important part.
For me, the issue of getting words on paper isn't focus, but an inability to decide how I want to start a page; it's decision paralysis. Whatever an LLM writes is going to be crappy, because it isn't me, but seeing it immediately gives me guidance as to what I want to say, because I have something to respond to as opposed to just being in my head.
It is not 90% of the task. If it was, a first draft would be 90% of the task of writing, and it never has been. You write a first draft so you can get to the editing portion.