I was just thinking about how harmful that idea is in general. I think true achievement and productivity comes from deep focus and immersion in the problem.

Ironically a lot of monotonous work that you were forced to do helped you immerse yourself in the problem domain and equipped you for the hard parts. Not just talking about AI btw, in general when people automate away the easy parts, the hard parts will suddenly seem more difficult, because there's no ramp-up.

While I know in some ways AI coding is helpful, the mode of work where you keep getting distracted while the agent works is much less productive when you just grind the problem.

I mean AI also helps you stay in the zone, but this 'casual' approach to work ultimately results in things not getting done, in my personal experience.

I imagine that's sometimes true.

Also, sometimes you could be a busy beaver implementing a lot of stuff you don't need. (And I'm a hobbyist programmer now (retired) so it's all stuff I don't really need.)

Also, sometimes being in the zone results in tunnel version and taking breaks results in new perspective.

So I think this is an area where "it all depends" is the best summary.