Being a creator may sound like a dream job from the outside, but in reality it can be exhausting.
So that doesn’t really surprise me 52% of makers admit that I have experienced burnout – I am definitely one of them. If you’re reading this, I assume you understand it too.
What was taxing my brain wasn’t even the “creation” part. It was the pressure to remember every good idea (and the constant fear of losing one) that gave me creative migraines.
I am a freelancer mom. I don’t spend most of the day in front of my laptop. My best ideas come when my brain relaxes – after dropping my kid off at school, while cooking dinner, or just when my head hits the pillow.
And those moments are not always convenient. I can’t just drop what I’m doing just to write.
But my content is how I build my network, stay visible and find new work for clients. Consistency is not optional for me. Losing ideas feels like missing opportunities.
One day I started dumping an idea into ChatGPT to help me refine it when I had a brainwave. I often used the AI tool as a sounding board for half-baked ideas like the one I was about to introduce; my chats had to be a goldmine of unused content.
But how did I dig up that gold? I didn’t want to waste half an hour searching through ChatGPT history just to find and document my old ideas.
Instead of creating, I would organize. And that’s the worst kind of energy leak for a creative who wants to stay consistent.
I said to myself: “If only ChatGPT could regularly trigger my ideas and remind me of the things I said I would write about… that would be great.”
So I had it done exactly that way.
How I automated my idea chaos
Instead of searching for notes buried in Google Docs, Google Drive, screenshots, Slack, or my Facebook Messenger (yes, I message myself), I now start the day with a clean menu of original ideas.
Every morning I wake up to an email from ChatGPT with my best ideas in it, already categorized.
Every morning’s email divides my chats into 3 clear categories:
- Substack ideas
- LinkedIn Topics
- Email experiments
It’s a simple system, but it has completely changed the way I approach content. And it doesn’t require any additional tools to work, just email and ChatGPT.
On busy days, yes emails serve as my content calendar. On slower days it’s a gentle nudge that helps me create more easily without thinking about it.
This automation helped me:
- Become a calm content creator. No more frantic searching for notes and, most importantly, no more grieving over my lost ideas.
- Launch two newsletters. One was even recognized as a Top Newsletter in Southeast Asia for B2B Marketers.
- Keep my mornings calm and my day productive. I am completely focused on the work of my clients, my child and even the laundry.
- Get my joy (and energy) back for creating content.
How to set this up (in just 10 minutes)
You don’t need any technical skills to make this work. You only need:
- To chat regularly with ChatGPT – about your work, ideas, projects, problems and thoughts. The more you share, the sharper the suggestions become.
- ChatGPT Plus to use the scheduling feature. View the usage restrictions here.
This is how you set it up:
- Go to ChatGPT schemes (formerly ChatGPT Task) and start a task.
- Paste this prompt (or customize it your way):
“Search your memory for recent work conversations. Choose non-obvious insights and convert them into substantive ideas. Email me:
1. 5 Excellent Substack Ideas. Just include the suggested titles. 2. 5 LinkedIn topics with a possible hook and a message summary. 3. Trace each email experiment from memory. Also look for the actual experiments/thoughts/ideas I mentioned to you.”
Here’s my actual prompt below:
- Make sure you have your task notifications set to email too so you get the reminders in your inbox. To check this, click on your profile picture > Settings > Notifications. Or just click here.
Finished.
It feels a bit like I have a second brain: one that doesn’t get tired or forget good ideas when the afternoon slump hits.
What brainstorming looks like now
Every day at 10:30 am, an email lands in my inbox with the ideas I would normally lose due to scattered notes and chaotic systems.
When I open this email it puts me in creation mode. Seeing those half-formed ideas lying there makes me want to draft the post – more often than not, if the idea is good enough, I feel the urge to finish it right away.
When I click the little green button it takes me straight to ChatGPT and I see something like this:
From there I go to work. While this system is incredibly useful (if I do say so myself), seasoned content creators will know that where this system ends is where the actual work of creation begins.
I pull out the best ideas from those emails and save them in Buffer. More often than not, I’ll start working on some ideas with the Create Space or directly in the Post Composer.
Once I came across a post by Alen Sultanic on “Energy Economics” while taking a break from client work. It sparked some ideas, so I dropped the screenshot into ChatGPT, added my own thoughts, and went back to my tasks.
The next day I watched it again and one long Substack entry. That piece became one of my best performers – and sparked some of the most thoughtful discussions in the comments.
On days when I just can’t get into the writing mood (yes, I still have that), I use the time for lighter creative work, more ideation and content organization. Some things I do:
- Mark old ideas as done in ChatGPT (so the list doesn’t get too long)
- Add new ones during the conversation
- Even create new content buckets, such as ‘Lead Magnet Ideas’ or ‘Offer Pitches’
I’ve realized that the secret to consistent content creation for me isn’t forcing inspiration. It makes it easy to start creating.
As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Great magic: “Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to become manifest. And the only way an idea can become manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.”
If I ignore them, they move on to someone else. That’s why I keep mine. So when they come to visit, I don’t lose them forever.
Let AI do the chaotic work
Content creation is not just about creativity. It’s over capacity, at.
It’s about dealing with and managing the mental tabs, the deadlines, the invisible pressure to always be ‘on’.
To protect our creative energy we need systems that restore order:
- A way to capture our best ideas
- A trigger to actually revisit them
- And a space to store them and turn them into published content
So let AI hoard these half-baked, scattered ideas so you can show up when it’s time to create.
#emails #content #ideas #morning #system #works