You know the moment where suddenly something you’re working on just… clicks? It’s so satisfying. My favourite is when I pluck out the one clear idea in a sea of info. What the story is really about.
You don’t always know what you’re trying to say when you start; finding it takes work.
My most recent conference talk is a good example of this: I spent months searching for something to say about the future of AI. I focussed on the mistakes we’re making, the misconceptions, the myths; on trying to sort the hype from the doom.
If you’d spent a few minutes reading my draft while I was in the thick of it, you’d have spotted immediately that it wasn’t focussed on the future, but on our past mistakes.
And if you’d pointed that out to me, you’d have been my a-ha sniffing guide dog, sensing the one thing I couldn’t yet.
The big idea was this: when we hype a technology, we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past.
In my talk draft, I had put lots of historical examples of over-excitement about a general purpose technology (the humble microwave!), preventing us from thinking clearly.
And it is still happening, to all of us!
It’s painful not knowing exactly what you’re writing about while you’re writing. Most people try to resolve that ambiguity too quickly. But if you go a little farther, one strong theme will emerge.
And when that eureka moment arrives, it isn’t just the feeling you get: it’s that it allows you to refocus everything you’re saying around that one point, and cut the rest. You’ve built a strong argument that leads in one direction, and everything has to earn its place in the direction of that argument.
AI is writing coach, not a ghostwriter
LLMs are really, really good at summarising and spotting themes in your work. But if you do that too soon, you’ll be led by its generic output, not by what you actually think (but just haven’t discovered yet).
This week’s advice: Notice when you're tempted to reach for the LLM…and then stop! That's the inflection point. Push through, because your a-ha moment is coming. Don't cheat yourself out of it.
For my AI talk, I very deliberately did not use an LLM for anything other than research. I didn’t want its opinion about what I was trying to say. I didn’t want it to rob me of the moment of discovery.
You can always find the signal in the noise, it just takes a little extra work to find that strong story. Don’t get distracted by the hype.
