AI ADHD development. Where is my flow state?

Volodymyr Shynkar — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:28:14 +0000

Last night I noticed something that made me sad. Flow state is gone.

A bit about my background. I am a DevOps guy with 10+ years of hands-on experience. Now I'm more into the operational side, I run the consulting firm (AppRecode), but I still build a lot myself, for my own projects and for the team, mostly with Claude and some local models. So this is not a "manager who stopped coding", I am still in the terminal most days.

When was the last time you felt real flow? Remember that? Even when AI was only autocomplete, we got there often. You are so focused on the problem that you get tunnel vision. Favorite music on, hands dancing on the keyboard, and you enjoy the process itself. Not the result. The process.

That feeling is gone now.

Today the loop looks like this. Describe the task, send it, wait 15, 20, 30 minutes while the agent works, and stare at the monitor. Or switch to another task and stare at that one. Give a task, switch. Give a parallel task, switch. Give one more, switch. You end up with 3 to 7 things running, and after five hours your brain feels like it worked three shifts. ADHD development, basically.

There is no flow in this, because you are always waiting for something. It is like being close to the end, and someone stops or changes the subject. We stopped building and became operators who keep the model busy.

1. Flow was never only about writing code. As a DevOps guy I had it a lot, and almost never while typing. It came from holding the whole system in my head and untangling it. I do not need to write every line myself for that.

2. We still work in "one task, one context." I think this is the real problem. If you stop thinking in single tickets and start thinking in groups of related tasks that share one context, then waiting is not empty time anymore. You put a few processes in the background and work on nearby problems inside the same mental model, instead of switching to something completely different. Maybe flow is possible on the orchestration level. We just did not learn how to work there yet.

3. Flow always came from caring about the thing. Every time I had it, it was because I was excited about an idea, not because the tools were good. Build the side project or the small SaaS you really want to exist, and I think the flow comes back, with or without agents.

So is it only me? Do you still get flow with agents in the loop? If yes, how does it look for you now?
And did you even think about this before, or is this the first time you are reading it?

The essay phrases by Bill Gates

Volodymyr Shynkar — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:06:28 +0000

On the speed of change and possible future inequality

"From an equality perspective, AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented or the worst source of injustice."

“When the PC came along, it took twenty years to fundamentally change the way we work, because the software had to be developed, the price had to come down, and people had to learn how to use the tools and implement them. AI, on the other hand, runs on the devices we already have and uses natural language. We don’t have to adapt to it because it adapts to us.”

"If someone had a credible plan to slow down the development of AI worldwide, I would probably support it. However, I don't think it will happen. The geopolitical and economic incentives are too strong to move forward at full speed."

About cyberattacks and the flip side of achievements

“Even criminals with very limited skills will be able to attack victims at any scale.”

“The smartest cybersecurity experts I know are terrified of the next few years, as attackers gain powerful new capabilities faster than defenders can patch all the vulnerabilities.”

"While AI will lead to life-saving advances in the creation of drugs and vaccines, it will also facilitate the development of a new deadly disease."

About the tax on tokens and robots

“We should tax AI tokens and robots. Right now, if you’re an employer and you hire someone, you pay taxes on their earnings. But if you buy a robot, you can usually write it off as a business expense right away. The tax system encourages you to replace people with machines. A tax would slow down the rapid decline in human labor a little bit and raise funds for retraining and strengthening the social security system.”

«Я запропонував податок на роботів багато років тому, і більшість відреагувала на це як на дивну ідею. Але я досі залишаюся її палким прихильником».

About control and preparation for consequences now

“The world needs a plan. It’s great that some AI companies are offering solutions to challenges related to their own technology, but we shouldn’t expect them to lead the way. Some of these issues are outside their purview, and in a democratic society, it’s not their role to decide such things.”

"None of our current institutions were designed to work with technology that is spreading so quickly and touching so many areas of our lives. So we will have to create new ones."

"My message to leaders is this: You have a chance to act now, before unemployment skyrockets, communities suffer, and public trust is eroded. You can make sure your government addresses this problem holistically, rather than dividing it up among different bureaucratic departments."