AI made me faster at building, but I had to change what “progress” meant

AI has made some parts of building dramatically faster for me.

A feature that used to take a long session can sometimes become a much shorter implementation task.

At first, I treated that as straightforward productivity.

More shipped = more progress.

Then I noticed something.

The faster I could generate changes, the more time I needed to spend deciding:

• Is this actually the right change?

• Did the agent touch anything unrelated?

• Does this fit the existing workflow?

• What assumptions did it make?

• What needs to be tested?

• Is this worth keeping?

So I started separating creation time from decision time.

Before:

Build → Build → Build → Review later

Now I try to work more like:

Decide → Build → Check → Learn → Decide again

It feels slightly slower in the moment.

But I think it gives me a better definition of progress.

A line of code being generated isn't progress by itself.

A feature being shipped isn't necessarily progress either.

Reducing uncertainty, solving a real problem, or learning something important is progress.

AI makes creation cheaper.

That makes choosing what deserves your attention even more important.

For people building with AI:

Have you changed how you measure progress since AI made building faster?