🧠 Most Writers Are Using AI Wrong

Here’s How to Fix It (Backed by MIT)

Image credit: Loz James in Canva

When I first started experimenting with AI, I never let it write entire drafts for me (and still don’t).

Instead, I’d use a quick, generic prompt to get a rough outline — then I’d weave my own points into each section, rewrite them in my voice, edit, fact-check, and polish.

It worked... but it felt clunky. The whole process was disjointed and slow — and the structure never quite matched how I naturally tell stories.

So I changed my approach.

Now, before I even open ChatGPT, I choose a real story from my personal idea bank — something I’ve lived and would tell a friend over coffee.

Inside my daily writing project workspace, I’ve already built:

• A library of my 2-3 best writing samples

• A detailed house style guide

• A clear target audience document (with pain points)

• My favourite frameworks for structuring articles

Then I simply turn on the mic and tell AI exactly what I want:

• The story I’m sharing today, and lessons to come out of it

• Which framework to follow, and the CTA I want

• A reminder to stick to my house style and avatar

I ask it to draft an outline, which I then write one section at a time, augmented by AI.

In other words: the ideas come from me first — AI just helps me shape and deliver them faster, in my voice.

What MIT Says

This human-first approach lines up perfectly with MIT’s recent study.

They found that writers who dumped the hard thinking onto AI from the start, built up something called cognitive debt — they produced words, but their brains stayed on standby.

But when writers used AI after doing their own thinking and storytelling, they kept full mental engagement, wrote more original work, and remembered what they wrote.

So don’t fear AI — train it to work for your ideas, not instead of them.

Take The Human-First Approach To AI Writing

So here’s my challenge for you:

• Collect your stories.

• Define your unique voice.

• Set up your AI to respect both.

AI is an incredible tool — but your human stories are the real asset. Think first, automate second.

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