When AI Adds More Work Instead of Less What You’re Missing in Your Content Workflow That’s Costing You Hours

Let’s talk about a lie a lot of us have bought into:

“AI will make content creation faster.”

Sure, it sounds nice on paper. But in real life? For a lot of us, it plays out more like this:

You type in a prompt.

You get a weird, off-kilter draft.

Then you spend twice as long fixing it as if you’d just written the thing yourself.

Yeah. Been there. A lot of us have. And the more I chat with other creators, marketers, and founders, the more I realize—it’s not really the AI that’s the issue.

It’s the way we’re using it.

So today, I want to share 6 simple (and kind of obvious once you hear them) shifts that helped me actually cut my editing time—and made working with AI feel like less of a chore and more of a cheat code.

Here we go:

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1. The problem isn’t your prompt—it’s what you’re feeding it

Prompts get all the blame. But most of the mess starts way earlier.

If you don’t spend a few minutes locking in the core idea you’re trying to say, the AI’s just winging it. That’s why you get fuzzy openings, half-baked arguments, and endless cleanup.

Quick Fix: Before prompting, sketch out a rough outline—or just write a paragraph in your own words explaining what you’re trying to say. That’s your brief. It gives the AI something solid to work with.

Tool Tip: Use ChatGPT’s “Custom Instructions” to bake in your writing style and context. That way, you’re not re-explaining yourself every time.

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2. You’re treating AI like a ghostwriter instead of a writing buddy

Let’s be real: most of us want to just say “write me a blog post” and have it spit out magic.

But the truth is, AI works way better as a sidekick than a lead.

It’s awesome at helping you riff on ideas, punch up phrasing, or shape your messy notes into something readable. But only if you steer the ship.

Try this instead: Rather than “Write a blog post about X,” say:

“Here’s my outline. Can you turn each point into three snappy, confident sentences?”

🛠️ Prompt to steal:

“Act as my writing assistant. I’ll send you ideas, and you help me shape them into clean, skimmable sections.”