Reading time: 6.32

1,551 words

Hey Reader,

“I know you hate AI but—“

Lemme stop you right there.

I have a lot of opinions about AI but I don’t blanket HATE it. I can see how you might think that, given that I am on record (on podcasts, stages, and my own email list) ranting about humanity’s march towards smooth brains and beige blancmange and possibly flesh-eating nanobots which is a new terror I’ve recently added to my collection…

But my opinion about AI, as about almost everything except runny eggs (evil), is nuanced.

I use AI. In fact, Claude and I are like this :crossedfingers

I’m very excited about what it can do for us, especially cash-strapped business owners, and especially women who have very little time and a lot of ideas.

So, as someone who “everyone KNOWS” hates AI, I’d like to share how I use AI, because it might help you.

1. Admin + business challenges.

I have ADHD. I really really REALLY struggle with keeping on top of my inbox. I have a wonderful VA who helps me with many things, but she doesn’t go into my inbox. Claude does, though. Joe (my clever husband) helped me to write a prompt that means every day, Claude goes into my calendar and my inbox and searches through the past few days to find out what I have to do imminently.

Do I have emails that need replying to? This is CRUCIAL because last week I cried when I found an email from a past client who I adore. She sent it in MARCH. I’d lost it in my inbox. She wanted to talk to me about a book idea she had. And I never replied because I didn’t know it was there. I probably lost an opportunity there. Now, that doesn’t happen, because Claude doesn’t let it.

Claude has also helped me work through the architecture of my own offerings, my funnels, my pricing — and my business is beginning to make much more sense. I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to simplify things and understand my own business.

Do I have help from my business mentors and business besties too? Absolutely. They’re always my first choice. But when they’re not there, I use Claude to think my way around how my business should be structured, and it’s very helpful.

2. Editing and structural feedback on my own writing.

When I write articles, essays, emails, and book chapters, I throw it into Claude and ask it to do the following:

• Find any structural issues — rambling, repetition, missing pieces — and tell me where they are.
• Note any gaps in my logic. Have I said something that doesn’t make sense, or that I contradict later on? Something I haven’t backed up?
• Tell me where I could insert some research — scientific papers, quotes from experts, relevant articles, that kind of thing.
• Show me where I’m rambling or where I can tighten up my writing.
• Point out where my own voice gets lost and where I sound like Google. Or, you know, an AI.

This saves me absolutely ages. And it doesn’t replace me doing the actual work of editing. And it definitely isn’t the final word on what I should do.

Quite often, when Claude points out that I’m rambling or I’ve used too many words to say something, I’ll ignore it, because it’s asking me to remove my own weird little quirks and I’m not going to do that.

It does, however, prompt me to think hard about whether I really DO need to say it like that. Does it make sense? Is it confusing? Am I just coming across a bit of a “trying too hard to be weird”?

When it makes structural suggestions, sometimes that’s really helpful and I’ll use it as a basis to make those changes; sometimes it’s wrong, BUT I haven’t quite got the connective tissue my article needs for it to make sense in the order it’s currently in.

It took me a long time to feel comfortable doing this because I felt that, somehow, I was “cheating” and that this was using AI to write. It’s not. It’s the nudge I need to do a proper editing job on my own work, which I would often skip because I always have 35,820 other things to do.

This use of Claude is cool. But it’s not the coolest.

3. Building sales pages that would’ve cost TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POUNDS a few years ago.

This is probably the most exciting piece of all for me, because although I love my website and my web team, things don’t happen instantly and they certainly don’t happen for free. Nor do they end up exactly how I want them because back and forth via email is wearisome and I give up quite fast and just go with the flow.

I needed a sales page for a new offer recently, and I had a conversation with Claude and Claude Design, and together we built the most incredible sales page complete with really fun Easter eggs and delightful moments.

You might be thinking that it’s just gonna look and sound generic because Claude built it.

Nope. Not at all.

Because all the copy and design came from a sequence of 24 emails I wrote with my own brain, plus the course it’s selling that I’ve written and developed over the past few years, plus everything I’ve written in my blog and on my website, plus all the branding I already have in place.

Then we tweaked and changed and altered and edited. And what I ended up with is pretty damn cool.

No, you can’t see it yet because the new course I’m offering isn’t quite ready.

But as soon as it is, I’ll share the page, because a) I’m excited about the page itself and b) I’m excited about the course I’ve made.

So. These are the top 3 ways I use Claude, in case you were wondering. It saves me time and effort.

And as for how I don’t use Claude…

I never, EVER give it a prompt along the lines of:

“Please do me an outline for a book about how to groom badgers.”

If you’re writing a book about grooming badgers I guarantee there’s a batshit story behind that because WTF, and we need all of that batshit story for the book to be worth writing and reading.

But if you enter that prompt (or even a good prompt) to generate an outline so you don’t have to think your way through your idea, what will happen is that Claude will scour the internet for information about badgers and grooming. It’ll throw together the most generic pile of shite you ever did see, devoid of anything resembling a personality or humanity.

No.

This is the creative heavy lifting and it cannot be shortcutted.

It should not be shortcutted.

It’s the fun part.

Yes, it’s the hard part — but that’s okay. We can do hard things. We’re built to do hard things.

We get to go out in nature and stare at the stars and see what pops into our heads. We get to eavesdrop on conversations between strangers, read books on subjects we’re unfamiliar with, play new games with old friends, write nonsense poetry and hand-make zines and binge-watch The Peripheral on the telly.

And because I have stopped blanket-hating and resisting AI, I now have more time to do all of those things and my creativity is stronger than ever.

Best of all — while other people are out there getting AI to write their emails and LinkedIn posts (and yes, I see them, and I can tell) those of us who are doubling down on our weird gremlin ways and embracing humanity are the ones who are going to succeed in this brave new robot world.

More time to write what I truly want to write. More time to go to carpentry school and learn woodworking (that’s where I am today). More time to go surfing. More time to hang out with the people I love.

This creativity part — that’s the bit I live for. And my favourite moment in the world is when I’m with a client and I see a light go on behind their eyes because they finally realise they are creative, they are incredible, and their opinions matter.

I was working with an author — Sharon — who told me that in university, her English professor told her she couldn’t write, and never would. That stopped her from writing a book for DECADES. Until she stumbled on these very emails, worked with me, and realised just how wrong (and, let’s face it, mean-spirited) her professor was. I helped her see her idea mattered beyond her own life; that it had relevance, resonance, reach. I watched her confidence expand. Then she got on with it. Her book is available to buy now and it’s good.

If you recognise yourself in that moment… if you know you’re creative and your book matters, but you’re not sure how to unlock it — let’s talk.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.