The Attention Trap

There are two forces pulling builders away from the finish line right now, and they feed on each other. The first is the dopamine hit of watching an idea come to life — that rush of instant creation that makes the hard twenty percent feel unbearable. The second is the firehose of new AI developments demanding your attention, making it feel irresponsible to look away even for a day.

Together they form a loop: you chase the high of building something new, then get pulled into consuming the latest developments, then get inspired to start yet another thing. The actual shipping never happens. Both forces share the same root — the seductive feeling that the next thing is more important than finishing the current thing.

Breaking out requires the same discipline from both angles: the willingness to say "not now" to a shiny new idea, and the ability to scan a new development and ask whether it actually matters for what you're building today.