Hitting my usage limits is something I dread. It stops me just as I am picking up some steam. Today it happened when I was building the actual user interface for the new storybook business I am starting.
Yesterday OpenAI changed its Codex usage limit strategy by making the $20 plus plan hit the 5-hour limit more often.
We’re rebalancing Codex usage in Plus to support more sessions throughout the week, rather than longer sessions in a single day.
Before I almost never worried about the Codex usage limits, compared to Claude where I almost always worry about the limits. It made me question what I’d actually gotten done today. Quite the struggle for something as arbitrary as usage limits.
It all goes back to the scarcity mentality I am training myself to have on using AI. It is making me aim for a lower target.
A similar scarcity mindset popped up when I was using Nano Banana Pro for the image generation of the storybook. After spending about $30 on the first couple of test runs in low quality, I was anxious to do a final test run. The scarcity tax isn’t the $30, but the test run I didn’t do.
Today I was trying to finish the PDF that would be sent to the printer for my first test book to be delivered. However I had my first run in with the newly lower session usage limit. It made me go back to doing some gardening outside instead. It was a touch grass sort of moment.
Key Insight:
The scarcity mindset does not only cost time. It also blocks creativity and ambition. Each limit makes you aim at a smaller target without noticing it.