Activities of Daily Thinking in the Age of AI

In medicine, activities of daily living or ADLs are among the most reliable indicators of a patient's functional health. Can they dress themselves? Feed themselves? Move through their day with independence? These aren't exotic skills, they're the baseline to living our lives. And when they start to deteriorate, clinicians will pay attention, because the erosion of ADL's can be a slippery slope. And ADLs matter precisely because they're ordinary and often — no one notices them until they're gone. By then, something larger and clinically significant might be involved.

I've been thinking about thinking in the same way.

A New Kind of Erosion

Today, AI has moved well past novelty. It manages so many of our cognitive tasks that we almost forget that engagement. For most people, this feels like progress. And in many ways it is. But there's something happening underneath the efficiency that deserves a closer look. The small, repeated acts of cognition are being outsourced. Performance improves in the moment. But remove the system, and the underlying capacity doesn't always return. I'll argue that the conditions that sustained independent thinking have been altered. And to this end, I want to propose a framework for what we're losing, borrowed directly from clinical medicine: Activities of Daily Thinking, or ADT.

A Checklist for Thinking

Just as ADLs measure physical independence, ADTs can be a tool to support cognitive independence. They are the routine mental acts that, taken together, constitute a functioning autonomous mind. When those acts get outsourced often enough, the language of thought remains, but the cost of arriving there disappears. And we adapt, because AI rewards adaptation. The friction that genuine understanding requires begins to feel like a defect. ADT is a way of naming what's worth protecting.

The Five Practices

These are things you can do right now. So, get thinking.

• Read. Let the words find some grounding without immediately asking for help interpreting it. Let the difficulty be part of the experience.
• Write. Put words down before you know what you think. The act of writing is how many of us find out. Outsource it and that discovery never happens.
• Decide. Make a choice, even a small one, without consulting AI.
• Disagree. Embrace the counter argument, even internally. Resistance is a cognitive act. And when AI eliminates the cognitive friction, the muscle for disagreement can atrophy.
• Stay. Stick with the question longer than feels comfortable. This can be tough. AI is very good at making discomfort optional. Staying anyway is where real thinking tends to happen.

A Practice, Not a Protest

ADT isn't an argument against AI but more of an argument for our own minds. Clinicians don't tell patients to stop using assistive devices. They identify which functions need to stay active so the underlying capacity doesn't disappear. I think that the same logic applies here. Use the tools, but keep the five practices alive.

Your thinking is worth the effort it takes to keep it yours.