If you want to avoid a race to mediocrity, be intentional in how you and your team members use GenAI (generative artificial intelligence).

It’s tempting to offload as much work as possible to increase your efficiency and free up time for more valuable work. However, if you default to taking the easy way out, you run the risk of reducing your effectiveness, both short and long term.

Plus, your hard-earned cognitive skills can start to deteriorate. Knowing that risk was what recently compelled me to create guidelines to safeguard my brain’s well-being as well as the quality of my work when using GenAI.  In this article, How to collaborate with GenAI without harming your brain and your well-being for the Forbes Coaches Council published online on July 22, 2025, I share my three guidelines for working with GenAI to improve my work without hurting my brain and my well-being. You’re welcome to adopt my guidelines as is or with tweaks that help you.

My top-level guidelines are:

1. Define the scope of the solution. 

2. Protect hard-earned cognitive skills, namely critical thinking, creativity, and self-generated insights. (These skills are my livelihood as well as the essence of my humanness. I don’t want to lose them to AI or neurocognitive decline. In the article, I explain what I’m doing.)

3. Continue to be social.

These guidelines are working well … so far. Considering the speed at which GenAI is evolving, we’ve got to pay attention to the technology advancements as well as the potential changes on our brain, our thinking and overall well-being. If we get complacent, we could be racing to mediocrity and into decline. Instead, we need to strive to continue to learn and develop by partnering with AI, not succumbing to it.