Here is a simple hack that I’ve used to periodically write good blog posts that select for 1) engaging content and 2) efficient writing. Seems that this is a useful skillset for busy people to cultivate, and no I don’t think it’s cheating - I will explain why throughout:

1. Incubation 

Post a bunch of little your little thoughts and ideas on social platform(s) of your choice as they occur to you (Twitter, LinkedIn). This is the incubation zone - if one of your posts gets more likes than normal (doesn't have to be viral, just a good std deviation above average) then you've got a candidate to expand into a blog (ex: the tweet below) ¹

2. Lit Review 

Then you need to curate relevant info. Take your idea to an answer engine like Perplexity and ask it some questions. For me with the ex tweet above my question was: "why do startups have a disproportionate advantage at creating innovation compared to large corporations despite having a fraction of the resources"? based on the premise of my tweet. It spit out some ideas like this:²

3. Synthesis + Rough Draft 

Then take your original 'good tweet' and the answers/research from perplexity and bring them into Claude to synthesize. I find this works best if you use Claude projects to retain a knowledge base of your previous blog posts so it can get a feel for your tone/style/topical prowess. Prompt it like this and have it ask any clarifying questions, which you may then plug back into perplexity to get answers to if you like:³ 

4. Editing and Final Draft 

Once you've gotten a draft from Claude, you can then ask for revisions if you like (for ex: in my last post it got too cute with a few 'David vs Goliath' analogies so I asked it to replace them with something more generic)

Then you can simply go through and tweak line by line to be more in your style. I may rearrange, add a paragraph or two, include some additional links or footnote, there are no rules.

After some editorial work and creative liberty you end up with a final product that looks like this blog post: https://ramsey.beehiiv.com/p/how-startups-beat-corporates

Then from there you can post the blog back to social media and the engagement flywheel continues.

Notes & Caveats

Now the caveat is that I don’t do this for every post. I don’t think you should - generally I use it for fun thoughts and ideas that I want to learn about and expand upon along the way.

The point is that if you follow steps 1-3 you are much more likely to end up with A) a topic people care to read about, B) some reference-worthy material to include from other people who have already thought about it, and C) a shortcut draft based on the context + the style of your previous posts.

Works great.

Some purists might argue this is "cheating" but I don't think so. It's still your ideas, and it's still your style. It's more well-researched, and drafted much quicker which makes it the editing process more refined.

Sure it can lead to derivate work or your tone can become watered down over time if you're not careful. But in a world of blatant AI content generation at scale I think this is the happy middle ground.

The nice part is that people now catch on if your writing seems 'overly AI manicured' - so there's a bit of a forcing function away from just ripping off ChatGPT responses and clicking send.

Authenticity still matters, in fact now it matters more than ever.

1  Good ideas appear organically. They pop into your brain magically every so often, you can’t just grunt them into existence. They are fleeting. Capture them efficiently by tweeting them in raw form.

2  Your goal here is to shape your thoughts with evidence. Using something like Perplexity is good bc it cites its sources well. It’s just taking relevant ideas and context from other humans and generating an AI summary with backlinks

3  You shouldn’t be trying to generate AI slop here. Your goal is just to find a point of reference to go off of with your own twist and unique (human) perspective.