I’ve always been a “writing-to-discover” kind of person—writing messy first drafts, then revising heavily until I figure out what I’m actually trying to say. It works, but it’s exhausting and slow.
Recently, I’ve started experimenting with a different approach, inspired by Lex.page (an AI writing tool I’ve been playing with):
Instead of writing-to-discover, it’s more like organizing-to-discover, followed by writing.
Here’s what that means in practice:
- I start by throwing all my notes, ideas, and research into one place.
- Then, rather than trying to write a messy draft right away, I use Lex’s AI features to organize my raw materials, identify connections, and clarify the core idea upfront. I also use ChatGPT and its friends, too. It’s good to get different perspectives, and they often see things I can’t (forest v.s. trees kinda thing).
- Once I’ve got a solid idea of what my key points are, I start writing my first draft.
It sounds simple - and probably obvious, too! - but the mental shift has been huge. I’m finding that once I’ve organized first, the writing itself flows far more easily—clearer, faster, and with way less mental friction.
And, yes, I often ask AI to write the first draft, and then I edit the ar5e of it.
(I brace myself for the moral outrage, but, I write for a living, and my writing helps people, and I think it be unethical to not use AI to write more and help more people. I’m sharing this because I think a lot of people are missing out on using AI, because they assume it’s just going to produce more slop, and they’ve not yet used to write in a good, decent, and honorouable way.).