for me it's less about dopamine crash and more about clashing headspaces. coding is pure flow, all in. ai pulls you out to play editor, and that shift kills momentum. here's what i've tried:

* batch ai work: toss it small stuff like snippets or lookups while i stay deep in my zone.

* hard limits: ai handles grunt work, not the big logic. if i'm fixing its bugs faster than writing it, i skip it.

* async vibes: treat ai like a junior coder. send a prompt, do something else, check later. no staring at the spinner.

This feels AI-written to me.