Are AI tools actually making us more productive or just giving us more ways to procrastinate?

I've been using AI tools for everything lately; writing, coding, design, research. On paper, they should be massive productivity boosters. Instead of spending hours on tasks, I can get decent results in minutes.

But I'm starting to notice a weird pattern. I spend way too much time tweaking prompts, trying different AI tools for the same task, and comparing outputs. Sometimes I'll spend 30 minutes getting the "perfect" AI generated result when I could've just done it myself in 20 minutes.

There's also this temptation to use AI for everything, even simple tasks that don't need it. Like I ask ChatGPT to write a two sentence email instead of just writing it lol.

The productivity gains are real when I use AI intentionally. But it's easy to fall into this trap where you're optimizing the optimization tools instead of actually working. Plus every new AI tool promises to be a game changer, so you end up constantly testing instead of sticking with what works.

How are you actually using AI tools? Are you seeing genuine productivity gains, or do you find yourself getting distracted by trying to perfect your AI workflow?