Why can't I stop coding with AI at night?
Fast AI-assisted coding acts like a continuous slot machine, pulling engineers into spending hours on evening vibe-coding sessions in hopes of a jackpot of working code. This makes it nearly impossible to disconnect at the end of the workday.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Abstain from using AI coding tools completelyDid this help you?
- 2Manually type out edits suggested by the AI instead of accepting them automaticallyDid this help you?
- 3Use AI only in low-effort, manual review modesDid this help you?
- 4Set a hard deadline or alarm to physically unplug the work laptopDid this help you?
- 5Clear the chat session after reaching a high token limitDid this help you?
- 6Delegate a long task and log off for the dayDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I can't think of a better audience for this question.”source ↗
“This leads to me spending hours and hours on vibe-coding sessions on workday evenings, after the workday is over.”source ↗
“I'm in a similar situation.”source ↗
“You are repeatedly pulling a slot machine in hopes for a jackpot of working usable code”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 40Why are teachers expected to be available 24/7?
- 18Why is modern IT work so boring and automated?