Using AI To Create Content Isn’t Saving You Time. Here’s Where Those Hours Are Going.
So we need to have a frank discussion.
And you’re probably not going to like what I say, but it needs to be said because I care about you and I want to see you win.
But right now, you’re doing something that’s actually stopping you from winning.
You’re using AI to write your content.
And I get it – your biggest barrier to creating content is time. I hear it all the time. You don’t have the time to create content. There’s people like me telling you that to attract clients you need to create content consistently. So when you find something that genuinely saves you time, you use it.
But using AI to create content isn’t saving you time – it’s actually costing you time.
So in this episode I’m going to walk you through exactly where those hours are going AND how you can save time on your content without AI writing it for you.
Let’s begin.
Let’s count what using AI to create content is actually costing you
So here’s why using AI to create content is actually costing you time.
More time because you spend more time fixing it than you would have writing it
You ask for a caption and four seconds later you’ve got one.
Until you read it back and realise it’s rubbish. It sounds like AI – with all the telltale signs and the extraordinary talent of saying a whole lotta words that mean absolutely nothing.
So you ask it to “sound more like me” or “make it pop” and it spits out something worse.
And before you know it, you’re arguing with a robot who doesn’t follow instructions and you’re no closer to having a piece of content written.
It would’ve been faster (and a whole lot less frustrating) to just write it yourself from the beginning. That’s the first hidden cost of using AI to create content – the fixing takes longer than the writing ever would have.
More time because you sound like every other muggle
Everyone is using the same tools with the same prompts and landing in the same beige middle. Your dream client has already scrolled past four versions of your content before they got to yours.
And sounding like everyone else is expensive, because how is your ideal client meant to know you have a solution to the problem they want solved? They don’t know what you know, and if it’s not immediately obvious, they ain’t working to find it.
So you’re spending your precious time creating content that is never going to stand out above the rest.
More time because it doesn’t land, so you make more of it
You create content. It does nothing. So you create more.
And repeat.
You’re pumping out maximum content but you’re not seeing a return on investment – in terms of your time and the clients you’re attracting. And it’s fucking frustrating.
It’s also a huge waste of your time.
More time because you end up doing the selling your content should’ve done
Good content sells for you – it answers the questions, handles the objections, and gets people to the point where they’re ready to buy.
Average content leaves questions for your ideal client. And if they’re not clear on why they should buy from you, they won’t.
Or you’ll feel like you’re constantly explaining what you do, answering the same questions, handling the same objections and talking to people who are never going to buy from you.
That’s hours wasted creating content that attracts the kinda people who are always waiting for the right time.
And more time because you’ve stopped being able to think for yourself
This is the one I care about the most.
Because I see so many people using AI as a crutch – like they can’t create content without it.
They’re outsourcing their brain and their voice and suddenly believing that AI knows better than they do – it doesn’t.
The person who knows your ideal client, your offers and your voice the best is YOU. Not me, not AI, YOU.
Creating content is a skill – the more you do it, the easier it becomes and ultimately the faster it is to create.
And the reverse is true – the less you do it, the harder it becomes and the longer it takes you to do it.
You sped up the wrong part of content creation
So why is using AI to create content costing you time? Because you sped up the wrong part.
Writing is the easy part – knowing what to say and why to say it takes longer.
AI speeds up the doing, but it’s never once helped anyone think faster or better.
And it can’t. Because it’s assembled entirely out of what already exists, so the best it can ever do is hand you the average of everything that’s already been said.
You needed something original and you reached for a machine that produces average.
So you’ve optimised the easy part and ignored the most important part. Meaning if you want to actually save time creating content, you have to know what to say, where to say it and when to say it.
So how do you actually save time on your content?
Well there’s some practical things you can do that will actually help – and none of them involve using AI to create content for you.
And notice none of them are about writing faster.
They all do the same job – they make sure you know what to say before you sit down to create.
Because that’s what’s underneath every single one of those costs. You didn’t know what to say, so you asked a robot. And the robot didn’t know either.
Voice note yourself after every client call
Two minutes, straight after you hang up. What did they ask me? What did I say that made them go oh?
Better yet, use Fathom and get a transcript of your call, put it into AI and pull out the key themes, challenges and questions.
This means you’re never sitting down wondering what to post – you’ve already got it, straight from the mouth of the exact person you want to work with.
And yes, that’s AI. Because using it to sort through conversations you’ve already had is a completely different thing to asking it to think for you.
Keep a list of conversations with ideal clients
Two lists, and keep them separate.
The questions people ask BEFORE they buy. What do you actually do, who’s it for, how does it work, why you and not the other twelve people offering this. These are the ones stopping the sale, so they’re your highest value content.
And the questions people ask AFTER they’ve bought. What they got stuck on, what they didn’t expect, what they wish they’d known earlier. These ones show people what it’s actually like to work with you – which is the thing everyone’s trying to work out before they hand over money.
Same for objections. Write down every single one, word for word, in the language they used.
Notice a pattern?
Your best content ideas are sitting in the conversations you’re already having – and they will be 10x better than anything AI is going to create.
Separate ideation from creation
You’re putting too much pressure on yourself to come up with a good idea and then create it, in the one go. And that’s why you resort to using AI to create content for you.
But all you need to do is separate the two. Firstly block out some time to sit down and brainstorm ideas and angles.
And you’re not brainstorming from nothing – that’s the bit that’s hard, and that’s exactly when you reach for AI.
You’re brainstorming from your lists. Open your voice notes and your questions doc, pick five things off there, and turn each one into an angle. That’s your ideation session done.
Then block out a separate session to turn those ideas into content.
You’ll find it a whole lot easier and faster than trying to do the entire content creation process in one sitting.
Repurpose your fucking content
I don’t know why so many people are allergic to repeating themselves.
But here is your permission slip to reuse one idea properly.
One good idea can be repurposed into a podcast, an email, two posts and a story sequence.
So take your best idea from last month. Write down four places it could go. Then put them in your calendar.
That’s it. You’ve just made four pieces of content out of thinking you’d already done.
Because let’s be real, no one is reading every single piece of your content (I promise) and the people who matter need to hear it more than once anyway.
Go back through what’s already worked
For the love of dogs LOOK AT YOUR DATA and take note of your best performing content.
Because spoiler alert → you can use it again.
I mean why wouldn’t you? It clearly resonated with your audience the first time PLUS there’s a whole heap of people following you now who never saw it.
So find a new angle, a new hook, a new format and share it again.
The more you use your data to make content decisions, the less you need to rely on AI to do the thinking for you.
The real cost of using AI to create content
So there you have it – why using AI to create your content is actually costing you time.
Now I said at the start you weren’t going to like this. But I’m not telling you any of it to make you feel bad about using AI.
I’m telling you because I’ve seen what happens when someone stops outsourcing their brain and starts trusting themselves. Their content gets better, it gets faster, and it starts bringing in the people they actually want to work with.
That’s what I want for you.
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