How's it going Reader!

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I never expected I'd be able to use AI efficiently to help me with stuff.

I was convinced that text-based AI like ChatGPT was just for churning out cringey slop.

And considering the damage that image-generating AI has done to the digital art industry... I'd rather just avoid the whole lot. Evil stuff.

But I definitely see the merit in using AI tools to help with tasks you otherwise struggle with. Especially as most of us are doing our creative work entirely on our own. We don't have a team to rely on!

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I've been dealing with some mega brain fog and mental fatigue the past few months.

So I've been relying on the glorified auto-fill machine (ChatGPT) to do things for me.

It's been surprisingly fantastic at helping with planning, decision-making, calculating my rates, and even communicating with clients.

Having something that lays things out clearly for me...

It's kind of like Googling stuff without having to scour a bunch of websites and make sense of all your findings.

I wanted to tell you about a few things that it's surprisingly good at. I hope you'll find it useful!

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1. Estimating Times for Tasks

I discovered that if you give it a rough list of tasks for a project, it can:

• sort them out into organised steps
• estimate how long each one takes
• AND help you calculate a rate for the project based on that

For example, I was recently working with a music producer to prepare a sample pack they were releasing ⬇️

I found that these estimated timings are pretty accurate!

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2. Calculating Rates

I knew I needed to increase my rates with a long-term client I've had for over two years, but I was putting it off cus I didn't know how to approach it...

I described the type of work, how long it took, how much I was charging, and my income goals ⬇️

This gives me a great starting point to think about it logically.

Sure, I could have calculated that on my own. But pricing is HARD. It often feels like you're pulling numbers out of thin air, right? 😅

I'm not sure how well it would fare with other types of work. It's quite easy to say "copywriters earn X amount per hour".

I did ask - "if I found a way to do the work faster, should I lower the rate?" It said no, because I'm still providing the same value. A good argument!

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3. Communicating With Clients

As you might've guessed, the above client was not able to pay this new rate.

So, I copy-pasted their reply in and asked it to give me some potential responses ⬇️

I then chose option 2 and asked for more details on approaches to that etc etc

And was able to agree on a new rate with this client over just a couple emails!

Much easier than trying to figure it out alone.

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4. Making Decisions

I also like to present it with decisions I need to make.

For example, I'm having an overhaul of my freelance offers right now, and was wondering how exactly to structure them ⬇️

Quite insightful, I thought!

Sometimes I follow what it says, other times I don't.

It definitely gives me a clearer idea of what I DON'T want to do.

I've also noticed it's more likely to agree with you than disagree. Like, it's not a person giving you feedback. It's just working off patterns.

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It's Not Magic...

It's far from asking questions to an actual person.

Its environmental impacts are also concerning... but its energy and water consumption are not out of line with other tech-y processing.

I still think it sucks at writing too 😂

The fact it's actually helped me get more done in the past couple months means I'm begrudgingly accepting it as useful.

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Have a great weekend ✌🏻

Damon

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March Week #3

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