I tried making a quick ad video (10-15 seconds) today using Google Gemini Pro for my productivity app: Aura Tracker: Habits & Goals, but it kept throwing me off with wrong results, which got me really frustrated and I finally gave up. After thinking about it, I realized this is a common issue with AI tools.
Many AI tools make it seem like using them is super fast and easy, with influencers even claiming they can quickly create amazing results with a specific tool. So, when the tool keeps failing, frustration builds up, and you’re more likely to give up quickly than if you’d started with a manual approach.
What I’ve noticed is that the problem often appears when the goal is not learning the tool but producing a specific outcome (like that ad). In that case, unlimited exploration can quietly turn into a productivity sink.
One thing that might help is to separate “learning mode” from “shipping mode.”
In learning mode, you can spend hours experimenting with the AI, trying different prompts, and figuring out its quirks. That time isn’t wasted because the goal is to experiment—dedicate some time to this, and you can fine-tune your workflow until you find something that works.
In shipping mode (which should only come after you’ve got a good workflow from the previous step), the goal is just to create something usable using the methods you’ve already fine-tuned and know work.
What often causes frustration is when those two modes get mixed. You start in shipping mode (“I’ll make this ad”), but halfway through you’re actually doing deep tool exploration. Then the brain says, “I wasted my day.” In reality, you were just doing a different kind of work than you intended.