I Used AI Coding Tools for 30 Days. Here’s What Made Me Faster (And What Didn’t)

A few weeks ago, I caught myself spending 40 minutes writing a form validation schema I had written a dozen times before. I wasn’t learning anything. I was just typing.

That was the moment I decided to run an experiment: for 30 days, I would use AI coding assistants on every project I touched, and I would log what saved me time and what quietly wasted it.

I expected a magic productivity boost. What I got was more nuanced. Some habits made me noticeably faster. Others made me slower while feeling productive, which is the worst combination.

This is the honest breakdown, including the mistakes.

The Setup

I mostly build web apps with React and Node.js, with the occasional Python script for automation. During the experiment, I worked on three things:

• A client dashboard (React + Express)
• An internal automation script (Python)
• An older codebase I joined mid-month and had...

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