There are days when I open my laptop, check all the boxes, and still feel like something’s missing. The tools I use are powerful. Efficient. Sometimes, a little too efficient. I get so much done I forget to ask myself the only question that matters: Is this still me?
This blog is built with AI. My images come from MidJourney, my drafts often begin in ChatGPT, and my layout lives inside a WordPress dashboard. I love these tools. They make so many of my ideas possible. But they also make it easy to slip into a mode of production instead of creation.
So how do I stay human while working in a space so driven by technology? It starts with small choices.
Starting Offline: Slowing Down to Reconnect
I don’t write everything with AI. Some mornings, I open a notebook instead of a browser. I need the feel of the pen, the slowness of my own handwriting. That pace reminds me I’m not a machine, and my creativity doesn’t need to run on a schedule. Sometimes, I even take a photo of those handwritten pages and upload them to ChatGPT to continue my work. It’s a small way of bridging the analog and digital—carrying my own rhythm into the tech I use.
Talking to the Tools Like They Matter
I talk to my tools. Not out loud (usually), but with intention. I write prompts as if I’m speaking to a collaborator. I don’t just ask for a headline. I explain what I’m trying to do, how I want it to feel. It’s less about controlling the outcome and more about staying connected to the process.
Letting Messiness Have a Place
I make space for messiness. Drafts that go nowhere. Ideas that linger half-finished. I don’t optimize everything, and that’s on purpose. There’s something very human in leaving the door open for uncertainty. I also very often tell ChatGPT to save an idea we’ve been working on for later. It has become my long-term memory, quietly storing fragments until I’m ready. Sometimes just asking, “What ideas do we have saved?” is enough to get creativity flowing again.
What I Refuse to Automate
And most of all, I remember what not to automate: my taste, my voice, my values. Tools can help shape a sentence, but they don’t know why something matters to me. That part is mine alone.
Coming Back to Presence
Staying grounded in a tech-driven world isn’t about rejecting the tools. It’s about choosing to work with them in ways that feel honest, grounded, and a little more like me. Because at the end of the day, the work I care about most doesn’t come from being productive. It comes from being present.
That question I asked at the start—Is this still me?—is one I return to often. It reminds me that technology can assist, but it can’t replace presence, intention, or heart. And if I can hold onto those, then maybe I haven’t lost myself in the speed of it all.
What about you? How do you stay rooted in your own creative voice when the world keeps pushing for more, faster, now? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments—or even better, in your own notebook first.
