Stop Productivity Killing Your Creativity

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The Year of Creative Optimisation

I must admit I failed you. But I have a plan.

I tried to minimise the hype and bring you only the best most relevant tools AI news and tools in 2024 but I've had a stark realisation.

I don't use 99% of the tools, and two weeks later they are out of date and irrelevant.

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The Plan

The evolution of this email is simply to: Enhance your Creativity.

This new focus opens the door to exploring systems and processes that aid creativity and conversations with leading creatives and explore what makes them successful. Expect:

• More podcasts with experts and creatives
• A focus only on AI tools that are Useful - Diving deeper into techniques
• Workshops to enhance your creative skills - (First one in February)

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Why This Is Important > Future Proof Your Career.

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By 2030 30% of jobs could be impacted but AI can't handle creativity​

The future is unclear but change is certain... and it's happening rapidly.
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After hours and hours of reading, researching and writing about AI, it's obvious:

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​Creativity is a highly valuable skill that can't be automated.

The dumbest thing you could do then is outsource your creative thinking to an AI tool.

NEVER look to AI for your creative concept - this is THE skill we must develop, nurture and optimise.
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Treat it like a precious gift because it's the key to thriving in a future of AI Agents and automation.

That's why the first podcast of this year is with TEDx Speaker and Occupational Psychologist Joss Hernandez.
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If you feel the tension between productivity and creativity then this episode is for you because you're thinking about productivity wrong.

Master Your Motivation: Achieve Your Goals in 2025

Did you know that by the second week in January, aka now, 88% of people have failed their New Year resolution?

But it's not too late to make 2025 the most CREATIVE and Productive year of your career. I'm running a free workshop on February 11th (7 pm GMT/ 1 pm CST) to help you set life-changing goals you'll be motivated to achieve.
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I'll also teach you how to stay focused meaning you take daily action towards them and build a system that guarantees progress even after motivation fades - because it inevitably does.

Sign up below, if you can't make it I'll send the recording but they'll be a free gift for everyone who attends in person.

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The one AI Tool I use that makes me 3x more efficient

Someone sent me one of those 100+ AI tools lists, fuking useless I thought, who's got time to try all of them. I opened it out of curiosity, maybe there's something novel I needed to know about...

There wasn't, but I did notice how often Descript appears and realised how useful it has become in my own work - except for one caveat I'll share later.
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If you are a video editor you probably already know and use this but for the rest of us who occasionally need to do some editing here's what it can do:

• Automatically recognise and delete repeated words - when you brain fart and get stuck on the same word
• Remove pauses for snappy social clips
• Automatically remove filler words eg, kind of, like, you know etc
• Transcribe audio and video into text
• Enhance Voice and remove background noise (although Adobe Podcast is better)
• Write summaries, YouTube chapters,
• Outline script ideas and write the scripts (Be careful NEVER to outsource your creative thinking)
• Remove green screen
• Make it look like you aren't reading by changing your eyes to look at the camera
• Automatic Multicamera that makes cuts and changes scene to follow the speaker
• Suggest reels and short edits - Long form to short form.
• Brainstorm
• write a social post about the video

So now to the negative: it's so good it's cut the time in half I used to take to edit a podcast, the problem with that is if I'm billing by hour I now get paid less.

The solution is to offer value-based pricing and package up offers that include social media posts and clips.

Share a tip - Let me know which AI tools have helped you save time or be more creative and I'll include it in the next issue with a credit to you. Hit reply.