Creativity isn’t a spark, it’s a relay

Using ChatGPT can help us reinvigorate stagnant creative workflows, without damaging our creative potential.

You started with energy. But then a creative tailspin begins: Should I work on this? Or should I work on that? I don’t know what’s next for that, so I can always start on something new.

It’s a sizable sinkhole for any singularly-focused creative brain. It goes exponential when we try our hand at multiple disciplines.

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Key Takeaways

• Rigid, unchanging processes can lead creative purgatory (in ways that creative thinking with AI can help kickstart)

• Viewing a creative process as a series of internal handoffs lets us identify bottlenecks and improve transitions

• The value of AI comes in helping us to shape the work, while we maximize our creative powers on the edges

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From there, it doesn’t take long to slide into process purgatory. Thinking there’s a one size or an all. Caught between wanting to do works justice and everything that keeps us from doing works justice. And all the while, crawling from one step in the process to the next, never thinking to restructure (or shrink) the almost-system that was supposed to help us complete stuff in the first place.

Why we get stuck in purgatory

It’s not a discipline problem. It’s a direction problem. You can’t improve a process that you don’t change. And an unchanging process is the definition of purgatory.

And as rational as having an “unchanging process” feels, it’s also pretty irrational, when you think about it. At least in the creative realm where, at the very least, whatever comes out at the end is largely dependent on the time and space where we started it.

That’s the poison pill in structure. We all have a different threshold on “what’s enough” pain to justify change. And so purgatory continues—at least as long as the impulses in our head are faster than the ones hammering the keyboard or flicking the pen.

Which points us to two great areas where AI can be of service to the creative process.

For one, getting out of our loops. Whether that looks like constantly starting something new when something further along gets hard, or slightly melting down at the idea of choosing one thing where we dedicate our energy.

For a second, it’s keeping direction (if you’re not moving forward and all that). Having direction is a great way to keep from self-destructing, much less avoid purgatory. And sometimes directions need to be forced.

Capture the shape, leave the edges

You can’t talk about creativity and AI without acknowledging that it’s flat out tricky. The best worst-case scenario is it forces us to decide too early what a thing should be, when what you really need is room to figure out what our idea was in the first place. The worst worse-case is deprive ourselves any of the meaning of making something.

But this is the part most people get wrong. Thinking that process—a selected format, outline, or mental path in the dirt—is about teasing out the best in an idea. When it’s really about opening up the room, creating the space to let that idea take shape.

Anything we’ve ever put meaning to, we’ve put it to some thing that took some shape. Nascent or evolved, it had a shape because we attribute meaning to things (though it’s funny how often we forget about the indirect object). And whether literal or metaphorical, there’s a shape to all things.

When we understand how to shape an idea, to put pressure on it, that’s when we hit process. But capturing the shape of a thing (and encouraging it to be lopsided) is as right-brained as it is left. With enough time and balance, all ideas find their best form. They just need to breathe first. That’s where AI can really help.

But understand creativity lives on the edges.

Edges—structure, sequence, wording—these are the details. These are where humanness lives and creativity would go on infinitely if allowed. This is where the punchlines meet the setup and where the believability screams. It’s an immersion into story and surprise. Creativity lives on the edges, because we live on the edges.

These are the areas we absolutely, positively shouldn’t allow ourselves to give up.

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Two prompts for injecting AI into a creative flow

Here’s how I look at AI as a way to invigorate our old creative processes, using none other than AI for self-reflection and an objective lens.

The thing you really need to do is pick your creative workflow. There are lots of ways to think of “a workflow” of course, but you could start with a basic list like the below or use your own.

Here’s a basic list of categories relevant for me:

• Songwriting

• Story writing

• Joke writing

• Course creation

• Content writing

• Video creation

• Album creation

• Course development

• Brand development

I keep mine overly broad (because it forces thinking into the broader picture, which is an approach I favor). But there’s a case for framing these as more targeted goals, like “landing a literary agent” or “promoting my latest song release”.

Either way, pick the one that you want to work on. We need it for our prompts.

Prompt 1: Visualize my workflow as a series of handoffs

Picture every step of your creative work is just a baton passed between versions of you. Ideator you hands the idea to writer you. Writer you passes it to editor you. And when either you drops it, maybe coach (or drill sergeant) helps us over the line.

Thinking in handoffs does two powerful things:

1. It separates roles, which creates effective moats in both time and space. You write. A future-you edits.

2. It defines progress. If a baton gets passed, there’s inherent movement. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t always our cleanest lap.

This lens serves to make things less dramatic. It’s easy to feel like we’re “failing to launch,” even though it’s really just floating high and low depending on the wind. So, we start by visualizing our creative process.

Here’s a prompt to visualize my creative workflow as a series of handoffs. For my example, I’m looking a workflow relevant to me: Music album creation. In other words, the development of an album (as opposed to the creation of the songs it’s made of).

I'm working on a creative project, and I want to visualize my workflow as a series of handoffs between different internal personas—like roles in a relay race.

The creative workflow I want to explore is:
[Insert creative process here—e.g., Album creation, Story writing, Video production, etc.]

Please help me:

1. Identify and name the key personas or "modes" of myself that show up during this process (e.g., Dreamer Me, Planner Me, Execution Me, Finisher Me).
2. Describe the strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies of each persona.
3. Show me what baton gets passed from one to the next, step by step, in this creative workflow.
4. Suggest how I can improve the transitions between each of these roles (with practical advice).
5. Highlight where bottlenecks or stalls are most likely to occur—and how I might design around them.

At the end, give me a visual or bullet-style outline—my internal handoff structure—and offer any mindset tips or rituals that could help each persona succeed in their stage of the process.

Running the previous prompt to visualize my creative workflow (creating an album) returns two particularly helpful sections. One is improvements we can make to each handoff. The other is likely bottlenecks (which is really just its own set of improvements).

Prompt 1: Likely bottlenecks and ideas to improve my process

When we think about it as hand-offs, we can start to understand:

• Where we leave off using one brain (brainstormer) to another (producer)

• What the package looks each step of the way

• How to make those packages work better (“Producer Me” likes when I label files correctly)

Prompt 2: Identify the top places for AI

Now we have a granular list of every step of the process. And we also have a list of the places where we can improve that process.

That’s everything we need to condense down to the top places where we can get some AI boost in our creative process. AI can also help here, especially if we give it the hand-off improvements and bottlenecks lists from above.

Below is a prompt that we can use for this, which helps us by:

1. Looking at all of the tips suggested in these sections

2. Cross out any that wouldn’t be useful with AI

3. Circle any that you would do if you could

Looking at how to improve my handoffs and likely bottlenecks, let's filter out the places where AI can be the most helpful. Take all provided ideas and:

* Looking at all of the tips suggested in these sections
* Eliminate any that wouldn’t be useful with AI
* Eliminate any where we're forced to give up significant creative input
* Circle any where AI can help particularly well

-- ideas START --

[Copy sections like 
'Step 3: How to Improve Each Handoff'
Transition	Challenge	Tips to Smooth It

'Step 4: Likely Bottlenecks & How to Design Around Them'
]

-- ideas END --

If you circle three or more, there’s your answer.

(Optional) Further define your north stars

Lastly, we whittle down our top candidates to one or two.

Take one minute to work with AI to get a thoughtful opinion on the top and ask yourself one (or all) of these questions:

I'm providing you a list of the top places where AI can help me in my creative workflow. 

[paste list of top three places for AI - from Step #2]

I'm trying to decide which is going to make the most effective in my creative endeavors. Please review the list I've provided. For each option, I want you to answer me three questions. Afterwards, make a SINGLE recommendation of which place I should work on integrating AI.

Questions to answer:

1. “What does success look like if this works really well?” This is the question that keeps you from digging a rabbit hole instead of solving your real problem. 
2. “What’s the worst case if this breaks?” You’ll be amazed how clear your scope gets when you think about what you don’t want. 
3. “What is the bare minimum I need to be happy?”: Strip it down to the basics. If AI can do X (summarize, critique, organize, whatever), you’re golden. Everything else is just scope creep dressed up as “exploration.”

And there you have a best and worst case scenario for each idea, along with a top recommendation. Yeah, it’s ONLY a recommendation, but those can go a long way. These answers help analyze my north star, they don’t define my north star.

Also, nothing plays a stronger part in this decision than whether I’m trying to reduce pain, save time or get better output.

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Make the machines come to you

This is where it can get weird and over-exasperating. We want to keep it simple, so bear in mind:

• Simplicity usually beats cleverness

• A lot of good starts with the unsexy

• We don’t want to be less creative

Your process should feel like a moving walkway at the airport. Just enough structure so that your next step feels obvious. At the end of the day, we’re always seeking to manufacture some momentum. If not for ourselves, than at least for our idea itself.

Use this prompt to take our north star and set ourselves up for the first step:

I'm providing you a north star for how I plan to use AI in my creative process. You're going to help me maximize my first step in implementing AI in.

My north star:

[Copy details about how I plan to use AI - from Step #3]

Start with three prompts that I can use to this end. Here's how to think about these prompts.

* Plant shortcuts where my future self will trip over them. Templates. Saved prompts. Half-finished drafts. Anything that whispers, “Just pick up where you left off.”
* Preload your environment with intention. Build default behaviors into your setup. If I always freeze at the blank page, start every session with a question like “What’s the point of this?” or “What’s the first terrible version of this idea?”
* Use the lazy route… on purpose. The fastest path is often the right one. Reuse. Remix. Reduce.

…And one survival tactic

Once you’ve named your north star, you need something even more boring: boundaries. Guardrails aren’t limits.

They are:

• Boxes that trigger us to move faster.

• Filters that extricate the bullshit.

• Hard lines that make the right things off-limits.

When we’re always on the verge of ‘AI drift’, sometimes a fence can be the best thing for us.

That’s something that frequently pops up in my work, and when it does it comes with an ever-present potential for aimlessness. But if we look at the forest through the trees of any creative endeavor (content writing, story writing, etc.), we give ourselves the space to define direction in ways that don’t box in our creativity.

It also means we can think more meaningfully about our creative process. Which we can use to maximize it when we explore more options, defend the right hypotheses and drop the wrong ones, and capture the shape while cultivating the edges.

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Whenever you're ready, here’s how I can help you:

1. Level up with 1:1 coaching: Get tailored support in prompt design, creative workflows, or AI strategy. Whether you're a writer, leader, or product thinker, I’ll help you use AI to create faster and smarter—without losing your voice.

2. Grab my Prioritization Power Stack: Not ready for coaching or consulting? Check out the first in my library of plug-and-play prompt packs—a closed-loop productivity system that eliminates busywork.

3. Book a training or workshop: From half-day bootcamps to role-specific trainings, I help teams unlock practical use cases, establish smart guardrails, and build momentum with clear, no-jargon frameworks.

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