Writing & ChatGTP

In 2019, I embarked on a thirty-day writing challenge that ended abruptly after just 23 days. A surfing trip to Morocco was too good to pass up. So, it feels very good to be 25 days into this current challenge–we’re now in unchartered territory.

When my co-founder Clement expressed a desire to spend more time writing, I encouraged him to take the challenge and offered to be his accountability buddy. I didn’t expect our entire team to join in, though.

We’ve set up a channel in our company Slack where we share our daily posts, which keeps everyone accountable. I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s work and discovering their interests. It's really quite inspiring.

There is something different this time around compared to 2019: ChatGPT. Back in those days (eye roll), the best writing assistance tool on the market was Grammarly. Comparatively, it had the IQ of a fruit fly when stacked up against current-day ChatGTP 4.

ChatGTP has completely changed my relationship with writing, and it has for many people who do knowledge work. It’s easy—and a huge time saver—to toss a bunch of ideas into a prompt and get back a polished piece of text. It’s become an integral part of my workflow.

But it’s important to remember that writing is thinking. When we write, we exercise our minds, organize our thoughts, and generate new ideas—something AI can never replicate.

It seems obvious, but dedicating time to writing is an enormous advantage. Having people on your team who can clearly express their thoughts and ideas in writing is invaluable to any company. That’s what gets me so excited about pursuing this daily writing practice.

ChatGTP can be a helpful writing tool if used with intention. A prompt I often use is:

You’re a professional writing coach. Provide improvement advice for this text. Do not rewrite the text. Only provide avenues for improvement.

Using AI this way helps you recognize areas for improvement in your writing and internalize those lessons. However, you still have to do the work.

As generative AI becomes more and more commonplace in every part of our lives and work, those who write will have a leg up over the rest. Writing sharpens our thinking and builds our understanding of ideas. That’s something ChatGPT can never replace.