How I Use AI Coding Assistants Without Turning My Brain to Mush Here's the thing: AI coding tools are incredible. They're also kinda scary if you use them wrong. I've been coding with AI assistants for months now, and I've learned the hard way that there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way? Copy-paste everything, never think, wake up one day and realize you can't write a for-loop without prompting ChatGPT. Here's what actually works. The 30-Second Rule Before I ask AI for help, I give myself 30 seconds to think about the problem. That's it. Just 30 seconds. Why? Because most of the time, I already know the answer. My brain is just being lazy. Those 30 seconds force me to actually engage with the problem instead of outsourcing my thinking immediately. Example: Need to reverse a string in Python? You probably know this. Take 30 seconds. Oh right, string[::-1] . Done. The AI is there for when you're genuinely stuck, not when you're being lazy.…