I think AI is creating a new kind of burnout nobody talks about

A strange new kind of burnout is starting to happen in the AI era. And I don’t think we have a name for it yet. It’s not the old kind of burnout where you’re working 14 hours a day doing everything manually. It’s something different. Now the work looks like this: You ask AI to do something. Then you review the output. Fix parts of it. Rewrite prompts. Approve it. Retry it. Check another tool. Compare outputs. Repeat. All day long. You’re not always “doing” the work anymore. You’re supervising work. And weirdly… that can feel even more mentally exhausting. Because your brain never fully locks into one mode. You’re constantly context switching between: * thinking * editing * reviewing * deciding * correcting * managing systems A lot of builders quietly feel this right now. AI removed some manual effort. But it also introduced a new kind of cognitive load. More speed. More output. More decisions. And humans were never designed to make hundreds of tiny decisions every hour. The people who thrive in the next few years probably won’t be the people who use the most AI tools. They’ll be the people who learn: * when to automate * when to slow down * when to think deeply * and when to step away from the screen Because productivity means nothing if your brain is constantly overloaded. That balance is becoming a real skill now.