Stop Being Overwhelmed by AI: A Practical Workflow for Creators

Show Notes

Feeling curious about AI but mostly just overwhelmed or intimidated? You're not alone! So many creators and entrepreneurs feel stuck, staring at a blank page or getting generic results from tools like ChatGPT or Gemini. The biggest mistake? Treating AI like a vending machine instead of a creative partner.

In this episode, I share my practical, "unfancy" system for shifting your mindset and integrating AI into your workflow. Stop letting the "what ifs" paralyze you and start using AI to amplify your creativity and get back valuable time. It's all about Getting It Done, Keeping It Real.

In This Episode:

• (00:02:03) - The Vending Machine Mistake & The Mindset Shift: From Tool to Collaborator

• (00:04:03) - Avoiding the "Robot Voice": You're the Creative Director

• (00:05:01) - My 4-Stage AI Workflow: Ideation, Research, Drafting & Repurposing

• (00:05:19) - Stage 1: Ideation & Brainstorming (Beating the Blank Page)

• (00:06:33) - Stage 2: Research & Synthesis (Your Research Assistant)

• (00:07:47) - Stage 3: Drafting & First-Pass Content (The "Sh*tty First Draft")

• (00:08:42) - Stage 4: Polishing & Repurposing (My Podcast Clip System)

• (00:10:10) - Real Story: How AI Solved My Content Command Centre Overwhelm with Apps Script

• (00:16:10) - The Art of the Prompt: Giving Clear Instructions

• (00:16:50) - Tip 1: Give it a Persona ("Act As" Framework)

• (00:18:49) - Tip 2: Provide Context & Constraints (The "Brief")

• (00:19:53) - Tip 3: Iterate (Treat it Like a Conversation)

• (00:21:48) - Addressing the Fears: Will AI make you lazy, less smart, or steal your voice?

• (00:27:18) - The Paced Connection: Intentional Creation vs. Unmindless Consumption

• (00:28:18) - Your Weekly Challenge: One Simple Step with the "Act As" Framework

Resources Mentioned:

AI Tools (General Concepts): ChatGPT, Google Gemini

Google Workspace: Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Google Apps Script

Concept: Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Draft"

🔗 CONNECT WITH RHONDA

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• Follow the Paced App journey: getpaced.app

Music for The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast: "Sunny Days" by Jimmy Gunnarsson via Descript.

Transcript

[00:00:03] Hello everyone and welcome back to The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast. It's great to be hanging out with you again. So let me ask you this. Do you ever find yourself staring at that blinking cursor on a blank page? Do you feel completely stuck? Right? Maybe. Maybe you're thinking, I've got this great idea. But the work involved, the writing, the research, it just feels like too much.

[00:00:39] Yeah, I know what that feeling's like. It's that friction, isn't it? It stops so many of us talented creators and entrepreneurs like you from actually moving forward. But what if I told you there's a way around that? What if you could have sort of a creative intern, one who never sleeps, actually loves to brainstorm, and is always ready to bang out that messy, crappy first draft for you, even at 2:00 AM?

[00:01:17] Well, that my friends, is basically what AI can be. And today I wanna show you how I hire it. And how I use it as my everyday partner. Now, if you're curious about ai, but maybe you're being kind of feeling overwhelmed or intimidated or you're thinking, Rhonda, I'm just not "techy". Then stick with me because this episode is especially for you, we're going to ditch that confusion and replace it with a simple get it done system because you know, this is a show about getting it done and keeping it real.

[00:02:03] Okay. Let's dive right into the most important part, the mindset.

[00:02:09] Do you know the single biggest mistake I see people make? They're treating AI like some kind of vending machine or maybe a slightly fancy calculator. Think about it. A tool, like a calculator or even spell check is pretty passive, right?

[00:02:27] It's functional transactional. You put in a specific command, 2 + 2, and you expect one right answer back. If you treat AI like that, like it's just Google looking for one perfect answer, you're gonna get frustrated. It's limiting. And that's exactly why so many people try something like ChatGPT get a kind of bland, generic response, and then they throw up their hands like, see, this is useless.

[00:02:58] I bet you know people like that. Maybe you are somebody like that. So here's the mindset shift stop thinking tool and start thinking creative partner. Seriously don't think of it as some all knowing genius. Just picture it as a smart, really enthusiastic, incredibly fast intern.

[00:03:25] Now, this intern is super quick, but here's the key thing, the absolute truth you need to get, it has zero world experience, no taste, no context, and that means your role needs to change. You're not the one doing the typing anymore. You become the creative director. Your job is to provide the vision, set the tone, catch the mistakes, and you always, always do that final polish.

[00:04:03] See how that frees that up? You get to work on your business, not just get buried in it. Now, I know that some of you might be thinking, uh, but Rhonda, won't this make my work sound fake or inauthentic? Will it steal my unique voice? Let me be clear on this one. AI doesn't have a voice. It's just a mimic.

[00:04:30] A really good one may be, but still a mimic. It's only going to sound robotic if you make that classic copy paste mistake. If you treat that first draft as the final product, your authentic voice, your stories, your unique, take your heart, that's what you as the creative director bring in at the end.

[00:04:51] You're the final filter. Think of AI as the amplifier of your voice. Never the replacement. It makes sense, right? Okay, so let's get a little practical here. Let me walk you through the actual unfancy system I use to weave AI into my process. Uh, this takes us right from, you know, that blank page all the way to the hitting publish.

[00:05:19] And I call it a system, but honestly, this is just how you manage it every day. It doesn't have to be fancy. First up. Tackling that blank page paralysis.

[00:05:31] You know that feeling staring at the cursor, completely overwhelmed. This is how we beat it here. You use AI as your idea generator, intern, and listen, the goal isn't to get 50 perfect ideas off the bat. It's just about getting two or three little sparks enough to break through that fear of getting started.

[00:05:52] I use it like this all the time. I'll ask it a prompt of, you know, I'm looking to create this post and I, you know, put in an idea. Can you give me, you know, 10 ideas? And then I'll go through the list and I'll find two or three ideas from that list that land with me, things that interest me. You can turn AI into your debate partner.

[00:06:14] You know, try a prompt like this. Act as a skeptical engineer. My new product idea is, and then you explain it. What are the three biggest flaws you see? It's kind of cool actually. It helps you challenge your own assumptions, find new angles before you waste time going down. A dead end, maybe the next stage solves a huge time suck problem.

[00:06:41] We have. We've all been there. You've got, you know, 10 articles piling up, three research studies, and maybe a long webinar that you need to watch. And of course, you have zero time to do any of this. So here you make AI your research assistant and you use a prompt, kinda like this. Act as an executive assistant, summarized this 10 page report into three key takeaways.

[00:07:06] Now rewrite that summary in just a hundred words. Just like that. You've gone from 10 pages to a hundred words in literally a few characters of typing. Or maybe you're trying to figure out what your clients are really saying in all the feedback forms. So you're gonna ask it something like this. I you're gonna ask it to be a theme spotter.

[00:07:31] Here are 15 pieces of customer feedback and you paste them in. Group these into three to five main themes and tell me what's the most urgent complaint. Basically, it does the reading, so you can focus on the thinking.

[00:07:47] All right. This is often the biggest hurdle for creators. The actual writing part, the mindset here is crucial. Remember Anne Lamont's term, "the shitty first draft". That's what the AI is for. Your intern handles that initial grunt work. You can get AI to draft a detailed outline for your blog post or write a full introduction, or maybe you need marketing copy.

[00:08:12] You could try prompting it with this. You are a social media marketing expert with experience in, and then you explain your area of work or your, your field of work.

[00:08:23] Write five different Facebook ads for my upcoming webinar, and you could use the information we found in the theme spotter from before to get even more specific target the problem areas identified. It just speeds up getting those initial words down so you can come in later and layer in your real voice.

[00:08:42] And then the last stage, this stage, it's pure leverage because let's face it, you're pouring your heart into creating one of, you know, these great pieces of content. Maybe like this podcast is an example, but then who really has the time to manually slice and. It into like 20 different pieces of social media content.

[00:09:04] This is where I use AI as my content multiplier, if you will. My actual process is actually pretty, pretty simple. After I've recorded, I get the transcript, then I'll literally upload that transcript to. My AI partner and I say something like, okay, scan this podcast transcript. give me two to three specific segments, maybe 30 to 60 seconds long.

[00:09:29] That would make really engaging short video clips like Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. Uh, gimme the start and end timestamps and maybe a catchy title idea. Or if I'm looking for, you know, static posts, I'll ask, pull out five powerful, keeping It Real Style quotes from this transcript that I could share as a standalone post on social media.

[00:09:51] Just like that, it helps me find the gold within the content and this like dramatically stretches the value I get from every single episode I create. It's all about protecting my time and my energy so I can focus on the next thing.

[00:10:10] And you know, this creative partner idea with ai, it actually goes beyond just words and images. And I know that's how a lot of us use it. Um, but, but there's so much more. I wanna share something with you that happened to me in the last couple of days. That was really cool. And it was driven by a point of real overwhelm for me, and I was surprised how AI actually came up with a solution that I didn't even know existed.

[00:10:39] But I need you to stick with me here because it might sound a little techy at first, but trust me, it was all about finding kind of an unfancy solution to a real problem. So I have this Google sheet, and it's called the My Content Command Center. It's just a fancy name for saying it's the brain that keeps me organized across all the areas of my business.

[00:11:00] So my real estate work, the Paced App development, and my personal brand stuff like the podcast here, it's supposed to help me stay on top of everything. That's the intent. But here's to keep a real part because these areas sometimes like overlap and the tasks are different. Like I'm writing here, recording there, posting everywhere.

[00:11:22] I was having a really hard time keeping everything straight just by looking at the spreadsheet. I felt like things were kinda maybe slipping through the cracks, where I was missing things and I was just feeling overwhelmed. And I knew, I just knew if I could get all those details and publish the dates and the from the sheet into my Google calendar, visually, it would make just a huge difference.

[00:11:48] My thought was I could put each area, so real estate, Paced and personal brand. Onto its own calendar. That way I could easily look at just one area of focus, or I could like combine all three and see how they intersect, where there's busy times where the conflicts might be. Plus, I could add notifications, which was even better.

[00:12:10] Notifications will help me if I needed to remember, you know, Manu to manually share a podcast link on launch day or follow up on a, a post, um, for real estate. This calendar reminder would be very helpful. The problem though, is manually transferring every single entry from this spreadsheet into the calendar.

[00:12:33] That was not gonna happen. That's just didn't make any sense. There's no value in me taking time to do that. So my first instinct was, you know, maybe like yours, maybe you're thinking, well, there's maybe an add-on for the app where somebody's already created this tool for me to do this. So I spent a good chunk of time searching Google Workspace Marketplace, trying to find, you know, different, trying to find some calendar sync tool.

[00:13:00] And I went through several, but honestly nothing seemed to work exactly the way I wanted. Some were too complicated, some didn't have multiple calendars, and others were, had a monthly cost. It just. Didn't make any sense, you know, especially for just this one task. So it's kind of getting a little frustrated, but I thought, wait a minute, let me ask my AI partner.

[00:13:21] So I went to Gemini 'cause that's the partner that I use, and I basically just described the problem. I said, I need a way to automatically get everything from my Google sheet into my Google calendar based on, you know, a category in column one. And I looked at add-ons, but I couldn't find a good fit. Is there another way?

[00:13:42] And sure enough. There it was, Gemini told me about something called Google App Script, and just so you know, Google is not sponsored this podcast, this is just how I do my business. There's, there's no extra here. Um, so it told me about Google App Script. It's basically a feature built into Google Sheets and, and Google Docs and etc that lets you add like a little program or a script to automate actions.

[00:14:11] And I had no idea that this existed. Obviously, I've seen that tab there when I'm in there, but I've never had no idea what it did. And the best part about all this Gemini offered to help me build the script because we were already in Google Sheets. Gemini knew the sheet, layout it, it knew the context, it knew the rows, the dates, the columns, and I just needed to tell it in plain English what I was trying to accomplish.

[00:14:40] So I gave it that detailed prompt we kind of talked about earlier. Act as a Google app script expert in my sheet. Column A is this, column B, is this column D has this date. Write me a script to create events in the correct calendar. Now, obviously it wasn't perfect on the first try. No, it took like a few back and forths and a bit of that iteration we talked about before.

[00:15:09] I had to tweak the prompt, clarify which column meant what, you know, adjust the notification setting. But here's what was really amazing about this whole thing, is I probably spent way more time hunting for that perfect add-on app that didn't actually exist. Then it took me and Gemini to actually build the exact solution I needed using app script.

[00:15:31] Now you're probably wondering why I'm, you know, going into this detail, but it's because it shows perfectly the mindset shift I needed. I didn't need to become a coder. I didn't even need to know app scripts existed. I just needed to clearly define my problem, explain my ideal outcome, and then collaborate with my AI partner to find and implement that solution.

[00:15:58] Even when my first idea of find an app didn't pan out, it helped me navigate the options and then execute. It was my technical and strategic intern, if you will. That's getting it done in a whole new way. Okay, so that's the what now? The Unfancy system for how you actually talk to this new partner.

[00:16:24] Because remember, you're, you're a smart intern, can't read your mind. Think of writing a, a good prompt as just giving clear instructions. And most beginners make that mind reader mistake. They type in something super vague and then get frustrated with a generic result. So here are three essential rules, for giving clear instructions in your prompts.

[00:16:50] First, give it a persona. The act as framework. Honestly, if you only remember one thing, remember this, it's probably the most important tip. You're basically telling AI who it should be. You're giving it a role, a perspective, a tone, all in one shot, so a bad prompt. As an example would be just typing, write about AI.

[00:17:20] Way too vague. A good prompt would be something like, act as a creative director writing an encouraging memo to your team of entrepreneurs. Explain why they shouldn't fear ai. Do you see the difference? It's not just more words, it's more detail. You're being specific and it instantly shifts AI from being kind of that general dictionary to being a specific specialized partner.

[00:17:50] And you can get really, like creative here. You could make it a skeptical marketing expert, uh, an encouraging creative coach, um, meticulous research assistant. Uh, direct response copywriter or even an empathetic customer service manager, or think about your specific field. Maybe you needed to act as an expert real estate copywriter, helping you brainstorm five creative hooks for a new property listing description, or perhaps an SEO savvy blog editor, optimizing your show notes.

[00:18:27] Maybe you need a data-driven social media manager to plan your posts or a skeptical investor to poke holes in your Paced App pitch. Definitely used it for that one. You could even ask it to be a Brene Brown style researcher explaining the psychology behind fear of judgment. The persona sets the stage.

[00:18:49] Alright, next you have to give it the details. So you, you define the persona, but now you need to give it the details, tell it who this content is actually for. What is the specific goal you're trying to achieve, and are there any limitations or rules and needs to follow? Maybe an example will help. So, okay, I'm writing a newsletter here.

[00:19:20] It's for my audience of busy professionals. The main goal is to get them to click the link in my new podcast episode, um, and Constraints. Let's keep the whole email under 150 characters or a hundred, sorry, 150 words or maybe, um, I need Instagram captions for my followers interested in personal growth with a goal of promoting the Progress Paradox episode, and keep it under a hundred words each with an empathetic tone and end with a question.

[00:19:53] That clarity makes all the difference because now you've defined what it is that you're looking for. You're very clear on what the details are. And finally, please, please don't make the one and done mistake your first prompt. It's almost never going to be the best one. A real creative partnership is a conversation, right?

[00:20:24] So talk back to it. Have the conversation. Maybe ask for podcast titles and they came back kind of generic. Don't just give up, follow up. Okay, that's a start. Can you make these shorter, maybe more clickworthy, and really lean into that creative partner idea we talked about. That's really how the conversation can go.

[00:20:46] It's a conversation. You keep refining, keep chatting, or say you ask for a blog post draft, and it came back to academic. Your follow up could be it's just too formal. Act as an honest down to earth coach talking to entrepreneurs, rewrite that intro with a relatable question.

[00:21:06] Then maybe you would say, better now. Add a short, vulnerable story about a time I felt this way. And then you would tell it a story or an example so that it could weave that in there. Uh, maybe you asked for a social post from a transcript and it just pulled a big, long paragraph. Your reply could be too long.

[00:21:24] Uh, find five short powerful quotes instead under 280 characters. Keeping it real style. Then maybe. Okay, I like quote number three, rewrite that as an Instagram caption, hook quote, and a community question at the end. See, it's, it's about that back and forth. That's really where the magic happens.

[00:21:48] The once and done is where you're gonna get that robotic feel if you, if you have the conversation and you massage it, so to speak. Uh, that's when you're really gonna get to your sound and, and, and be able to feel like it's, you know, the authentic you. Now, I know even with these systems, there can still be real fears about, you know, jumping into this new technology and it's really not even that new anymore.

[00:22:22] But I wanna kinda tackle some of these fears because there's definitely these questions out there. So the fear might be, but Rhonda won't using ai. Just make me lazy. Won't my creative skills actually get worse? Maybe you have that thought. Okay, so, so my answer to that is, let me ask you this. Did calculators make us bad at math?

[00:22:47] No. Right. They freed us up from doing endless long division by hand, so we could focus our brain on higher level stuff like designing buildings and, you know, bridges and skyscrapers. AI does the same thing, but maybe even more. It automates the tedious parts, the repetitive tasks. Not the creative spark.

[00:23:11] We're talking about automating maybe 80% of the grunt work, the transcribing, the summarizing, maybe getting that messy first draft down and then yes, that absolutely frees you up to pour, your energy and your time into that 20% that only you can do your unique strategy, your authentic voice, your vision.

[00:23:31] It definitely frees you up for that higher level thinking. But here's the thing. I've personally found, and I would actually argue this point, I feel more creative with ai. It's just, it's not just taking away the tedious stuff. It's acting like this incredible brainstorming partner. I can generate 50 ideas in seconds, helping me find connections I would never have seen on my own.

[00:24:02] It lets me experiment with, with different angles or tones almost instantly. So it's not just about not losing creativity, it's about actively enhancing it. It becomes a tool that helps push your creative boundaries. And now closely related to this. Is another worry I hear a lot. The fear is okay, but won't relying on AI just make us dumber less smart?

[00:24:29] Like if we don't have to struggle through the research or the first drafts ourselves, will our own thinking skills just get weaker? It's a valid concern to consider, right? But honestly, I believe AI actually makes me smarter. Think about it. Suddenly I have access to what feels like an expert in every field.

[00:24:51] Right at my fingertips. If I want to improve a skill, whether it's understanding Google App script, like in my story or uh, learning about a new marketing framework, or even diving into the psychology of decision making, I can ask my AI partner to explain it, act as the expert, maybe even give me practice exercises.

[00:25:14] That ease of access to information and expertise that's not making me dumber. It's accelerating my learning. It's like the difference between having a library card versus the entire library, digitized and searchable, plus a helpful library in ready to like pull information 24 7. Did having calculators make us worse at math overall?

[00:25:37] Or did they free us up to tackle much more complex problems? Did GPS make us unable to navigate, or did it free up our brain space so we could focus on driving and notice, you know, our surroundings? I see AI the same way. It's not about replacing thinking, it's about augmenting it.

[00:25:57] It handles the lower level cognitive tasks, remembering facts, summarizing texts. Uh, finding patterns so that we can focus our uniquely human intelligence on the higher level stuff, critical thinking, uh, strategic planning, emotional intelligence, ethical judgment, and you know, those real creative leaps.

[00:26:19] Using AI effectively actually requires you to be smarter in how you ask questions, evaluate the answers, and integrate the knowledge. It is shifting where we apply our intelligence and giving us tools to apply it more broadly and deeply.

[00:26:36] And then the last big one, the last fear that I hear is, will it steel my unique voice. Am I going to sell like a robot? I need you to remember AI reflects the data. It learned from, it doesn't have its own original thoughts or feelings. It only sounds robotic if you make that copy paste mistake. In fact, experts are saying the more that people just blindly rely on AI to produce content, the more generic and bland that content will feel.

[00:27:09] You know what that does? It puts an even higher premium on your unique human voice. You, the creative director. Always have the final say. You're the one adding the stories, the personality, the heart. So here's what I really want you to take away from today. Stop letting those vague what ifs paralyze you.

[00:27:35] You don't need to become an AI expert overnight. You don't need to learn 20 different complicated tools. You just need to solve one problem. Start small. And this is all about being intentional. So you know, my Paced App, it's designed to help break that an unintentional, mindless scrolling. Well, this AI system, this is what you can do with the time and the focus, you get back from losing that doom scroll.

[00:28:07] It's the intentional creation tool. One helps you stop the unmindless consumption? The other helps you power your mindful creation here.

[00:28:18] See how they fit kind of together. It's all about building that system for work-life harmony. So my challenge for you this week, super simple. Just pick one small, repetitive task that you really hate doing. Maybe it's drafting that social media bio. Maybe it's summarizing a long article that you have to read.

[00:28:37] Just try the act as framework. We talked about the persona. Give AI that specific persona, give it clear context and just see how much better the output gets. That's it. That's your first step. It's how you start turning AI from something scary or overwhelming into maybe your most powerful collaborator.

[00:29:03] All right? That's what I've got for you this week. Thanks as always for hanging out with me and remember, this is The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast, and this is where we focus on getting it done and keeping it real. If today's conversation sparks something for you, the easiest way to make sure you don't miss the next one is just to hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen.

[00:29:23] New episodes drop every Tuesday. You can find the show notes, links and full transcript for this episode over at rhondalavoie.com. And hey, if you happen to be curious about the Paced App, the project I mentioned all about helping you take back your time at your pace,

[00:29:40] You can follow along with our journey over at getpaced.app. Until next time, keep it real and get it done.