I often know exactly what I want long before I know how to build it. A constant flow of ideas and iteration over what seems like years sometimes. A crystal clear picture of end products and use cases. If only I could explain them in some form but the path doesn’t exist and usually a bunch of nonsense comes out. Points are missed, vision is skewed and the idea falls away while another one forms.
Part of that is how my brain works. The genetic bonus that is ADHD; a constant thunderstorm of ideas, connections, and half-formed concepts all causing chaos while crying out for attention all at once. Great for creativity and dreaming of something better in life. Shit for execution and creating something meaningful. Things make perfect sense to me internally, and then fall apart the moment I try to explain or structure them in the real world. Amazing.
For years the gap between vision and execution frustrated the hell out of me, many many ideas fell by the wayside when I realised I just couldn’t execute the vision. I could see products, features, and systems clearly, but translating that into something concrete was hard or near on impossible. Not because the ideas sucked but because my mind moves faster than my ability to pin them down or I don’t own the skillset to implement them from the start. I want to jump in half way or not deal with the boring shit like templates or complex functions while I notice the squirrels out of my window.
Then this little technology called an LLM showed up.
While I’m dubious of LLMs and what they can and will do, unlike my friends who work in AI and freak out over this stuff. I treat it for what it is, a really clever search engine that can turn my words in to something cohesive and provide information to me that I could find myself with enough time and effort. Although mostly gone are the years I’d spend 5 hours diving down rabbit holes to find an answer to something.
So with this in mind I started playing, having conversations, asking for input on various things and this has turned in to using the AI as a power tool for my brain. To get my ideas out in some form, leaving them, doing something else, coming back and telling the AI it’s wrong and I want something else. With that foundation I can iterate and solidify my ideas and have an output thats aligned. For the first time, this actually feels like real productivity. Instead of ideas bouncing around in my head, they are now bouncing around the cloud with a rather stupid computer that is only really good at the boring stuff.
It helps me get the storm out of my head and into something organised. I can dump messy thoughts, circle back, reshape them, and see them laid out in ways I can actually work with. I stay in my strength: thinking, connecting, deciding while AI handles much of the translation and structure.
This became real with a product idea I’ve been thinking about for a long long time, maybe years. I never quite had the workflow, skillset or momentum to move it forward. And while AI didn’t build it for me (well it kind of did, but not all of it), it helped me find a way of working that fits how my brain actually operates, and that unlocked real progress. I still check everything it’s done and fight with it to understand some of the nuances of how I speak to get the ideas set out correctly but we make progress and this product comes together slowly.
I think clearly. I describe imperfectly. AI helps bridge that gap.
Still, I’m cautious.
Fast answers can replace slow thinking if you’re not careful. It’s easy to accept what “works” instead of understanding why. And AI will happily mirror whatever you bring to it; good thinking or bad. It’s just quicker than me.
So I treat it like a tool that amplifies me, not replaces me. When I’m clear and curious, it’s powerful. When I’m scattered or lazy, it becomes a crutch and we end up fighting and while it stays calm and collected I’m left seething like the old days without help.
I no longer see myself as “bad at coding.” I see myself as someone whose strength is vision, taste, and direction. Someone who uses AI to close the execution gap instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.
AI hasn’t changed my brain. It’s just given my brain a very fast assistant.
And I’m choosing to use it with my eyes open, ego in check, some doubt and ideas definitely still my own… I think.