AI shouldn't replace your voice; it should be treated like an intern that handles repetitive, time-consuming tasks. Use it to create outlines or summarize notes, then inject your unique personality, stories, and humor. This combines AI's efficiency with your essential human connection.

A powerful workflow is to explicitly instruct your AI to act as a collaborative thinking partner—asking questions and organizing thoughts—while strictly forbidding it from creating final artifacts. This separates the crucial thinking phase from the generative phase, leading to better outcomes.

Avoid using AI to create sales outreach from scratch ('black pen'). Instead, use it as an editor ('red pen'). Apply the 10-80-10 rule: 10% human-led prompting, 80% AI-driven task execution, and a final 10% human refinement. This maintains quality while boosting efficiency.

Instead of using AI to write final copy, leverage it as a brainstorming partner. Dave Gerhardt uses ChatGPT to generate 15 variations of a subject line. This process allows him to cherry-pick words and phrases, combining them into a superior, human-crafted final version.

To avoid generic brainstorming outcomes, use AI as a filter for mediocrity. Ask a tool like ChatGPT for the top 10 ideas on a topic, and then explicitly remove those common suggestions from consideration. This forces the team to bypass the obvious and engage in more original, innovative thinking.

Achieve higher-quality results by using an AI to first generate an outline or plan. Then, refine that plan with follow-up prompts before asking for the final execution. This course-corrects early and avoids wasted time on flawed one-shot outputs, ultimately saving time.

Instead of accepting an AI's first output, request multiple variations of the content. Then, ask the AI to identify the best option. This forces the model to re-evaluate its own work against the project's goals and target audience, leading to a more refined final product.

Instead of solely relying on AI for net-new ideas, articulate your own thoughts and have the AI play them back to you. This process helps clarify your thinking, reveal gaps in your logic, and validate your intuition, demonstrating that much of the AI's value lies in refining your existing knowledge.

Instead of aiming for a perfect AI-generated first draft, use it as a tool to overcome writer's block. When feeling unmotivated, ask an AI to produce an initial version. The often-flawed or "terrible" output can provide the necessary energy and motivation for a human writer to jump in and improve it.