I spent a few days in New York City surrounded by some of the most creative people I know, and I came home thinking about something that kept coming up in our conversations.
AI is making us more efficient. But what are we doing with all that extra time?
After Squarespace Circle Day, I stuck around to record a few conversations with fellow Squarespace professionals about AI, creativity, and the pressure to produce more, faster.
And wow, did they have some thoughts.
Being efficient isn't always being creative.
Aaron shared something I think a lot of us can relate to: spending more time trying to get AI to do something than it would have taken to just do it ourselves.
Will took that idea even further, comparing AI automation to the time he spent organizing album artwork in iTunes instead of studying in college. (If you've ever spent three hours building a system to save yourself five minutes, you know exactly what he's talking about.)
And here's the thing: I love using AI to make my work easier! I've used it to solve technical problems that would have taken me hours to figure out on my own.
But there's a difference between using a tool to help us create something and getting so caught up in the tool that we forget what we were trying to create in the first place.
Some things are worth doing ourselves.
Monica shared her experience using AI to help with writing, only to discover that she was having a harder time finding her own words when she sat down to write independently.
Christy had a similar realization when she reread an email she'd created with AI assistance and thought, "This is not me."
She decided to start writing her own emails again, and her audience noticed.
I think that's such an important reminder. Our creative work isn't just about producing something polished. It's about sharing our perspective, communicating our ideas, and connecting with other humans.
And sometimes the process of creating something is just as valuable as the thing we create.
Your creative voice is worth protecting.
Sam's comfortable using it for research and repetitive tasks, but draws a firm line when it comes to his personal writing and aesthetic choices.
Kristine shared so man y soundbites, but my favorite one was this: if we want quality creative output, we need to consistently be the creative input.
One of my favorite things about Circle Day was seeing how differently everyone approaches website design. Give ten designers the same project brief and the same Squarespace template, and you'll get ten completely different websites.
That's the magic of creativity. Our experiences, preferences, weird ideas, and unique perspectives all influence what we make.
And I don't want us to lose that.
Make time to make things.
I don't think we need to stop using AI. Far from it.
I think we need to be more intentional about which parts of our creative process we hand over to technology and which parts we hold onto.
Let AI help with the repetitive work. Let it handle technical challenges when that makes sense. Use the tools that make your life easier.
But don't feel like every minute you save needs to become another minute of productivity.
Spend half an hour experimenting with a Squarespace layout you'll never publish. Flip through a magazine. Take a walk and find a color palette in someone's garden.
Create something just because you want to.
Because the point of being more efficient isn't necessarily to make more stuff.
It's to make more room for the stuff that matters.
Meet the Guests
Christy — Squarespace Designer
https://christyprice.com
Aaron — Sueño & Co.
https://www.suenoandco.com
Monica — Hold Space Creative
https://www.holdspacecreative.com
Will — Squarespace Developer & Educator
https://www.will-myers.com
Kristine — Squarespace Designer & Strategist
https://kristineneil.com
Sam — Culture Boy & Community Events Manager for Squarespace Circle
https://cultureboy.substack.com
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This transcript was automatically generated by Descript AI and. may contain error.s
Becca here. I am sitting in a Kit Studios recording studio in New York City. We are two days post Circle Day, and I decided to stick around just a little bit longer because I knew I would just have an overload of creativity and ideas after hanging out with so many creative people in such a short period of time. So in this particular episode of Think Inside the Square, I wanna talk about something that was coming up over and over again in the different conversations I was having in person here at Squarespace's Circle Day in New York City.
[00:00:32] We were talking about the efficiency of AI, the pressure that a lot of us designers are facing to use these brand-new tools to make us more efficient, to make us more productive, and how that is impacting our creativity.
[00:00:46] I've got some clips from great minds in our Squarespace community that I'll be sharing here in this episode. So for a link to all of their resources, be sure to visit insidethesquare.co/podcast. And before I say anything else, please be aware that the term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace Incorporated.
[00:01:03] This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by Squarespace Incorporated. These are just our opinions as Squarespacers out here in this world creating amazing things
[00:01:17] I really had some amazing conversations, and that's what I wanted to capture in this episode of Think Inside the Square. So here are some thoughts from my Squarespace friends. I'll have them introduce themselves and then speak on creativity and efficiency with AI and how it's been affecting their work
[00:01:31]
[00:01:33] Speaker 4: I'm Christi Price. I've been working in web design for over 20 years, and Becca and I have been friends for, oh, my goodness, six or seven at least. Uh, really excited to be here today.
[00:01:44] I use a tool called Tella for video recording, and they just rolled out an agent to help you edit the videos really quickly.
[00:01:52] And I do really simple edits for my YouTube videos. If you've seen them, they're very simple. It's me, sometimes a screen share, edited very plainly. But with this agent, I found, like, oh, I can do overlays, and I can add sounds, and I can add split screens and all of this crazy stuff. And I was spending so much more time editing my videos than keeping it simple.
[00:02:15] So for me, it's also in terms of not giving up my creativity, spending time, you know, t- on other pursuits. For me, it's like, well, don't let AI do everything for you. And another example for me is I was letting AI help me with my email marketing for a while, and I read back ... I get them in my own email inbox, and I read one back one day and I'm like, "This is not me.
[00:02:43] This is not me." And I drew a line in the sand. I redid all of my onboarding and basically said, "You're gonna hear from me, not a robot." So everything is in my emails is written by me, and that feels so good to me right now. So I'm really thinking about where I'm making that delineation between what I want the robots to do, what I can do, and yes, not using that time to just create more robot tasks, but actually using it to write my own emails that sound like me, and I think have a better connection with my audience.
[00:03:17] And I've gotten so many people replying back about that one thing, and it's like, "Yeah, that's why I'm still subscribed to your emails." But, you know, I think we can all look at our own lives and businesses and think about, where do we draw this line? And it's gonna be different for every single person, but I think just taking a moment to think about that is so important right now
[00:03:36]
[00:03:39] Speaker 6: my name's Aaron Soto. . I'm the founder and creative director for Sueno & Company. We're based out of Amarillo, Texas. We help a lot of more of the mid-tier businesses, startups and organizations, with web design, branding, and, ongoing partnerships.
[00:03:55] I feel with AI, and, I, I've noticed this because, it's this new tool and, , you wanna use it. You want to be able to do, like, all these crazy cool things, but I started to notice myself spending more time using AI to try to be efficient than actually just being efficient and, and getting pen and paper, and let's, let's rock and roll kind of a deal.
[00:04:22] I've had to take a step back and get back to my roots
[00:04:26] I take a lot of pride in, like, the craftsmanship of, like, branding and web design and just everything in general like that where I notice myself using AI to do some of these things, and I'm like, "Hold up," , "Wait," , "This isn't what I want," but also, , it felt like I was cheating in a way.
[00:04:42] So it's, it was one of those just moments where I had to step back and be like, "Okay," like, "Wait," like, AI is great to do certain things, but the creative, what got you to this point, at least , in my business, is like I can't cheat that. I can't, like, go lazy with it and, and use AI to create something. I need to get back to the roots.
[00:05:06] Go flip a book, go flip some magazines, go, like, get inspired and find some creativity where you can bring it back, , because AI is here to stay. I mean, it's coming. It's here. But what we lack now is that human connection, that authenticity of, um, of being humans, and I think that's, the shift now where people see them.
[00:05:30] They're like, "Oh, these designs ain't AI. They actually made these," and that's what's making my company succeed is that because, like, they want that human connection, but also they want something created by a human too, not just a AI that's gonna look like everyone else's, like, designs.
[00:05:49]
[00:05:51] Speaker 9: I'm Monica Kovacs. I own Hold Space Creative, a Squarespace design studio for therapists and coaches. I feel like about a year ago, I really was like, "I really need to give AI a try. There's a lot of different things you can do with it. I work in tech. I need to try to, , embrace this a little bit and figure it out." And so I was trying it out with, content writing, and writing some blog posts and email for me, and at first I was like, "Oh, this is great.
[00:06:19] It's, saving me a lot of time." Writing was one of those things that- Has always taken a lot of time for me because I really like to like think things through, choose words really intentionally. And so when it can spit out a blog post in a few minutes, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's so great."
[00:06:38] Then it did not take long, literally like a couple weeks, to notice in myself a shift in like having even more difficulty writing. So when I went to write something just from my own brain, it was like the neurons weren't firing. And I was like, "Why can't I think of that word?" Um, and then, you know, writing emails as well, it was just like taking me almost twice as long to write an email from my own brain.
[00:07:06] And I was like, well, that's not working. If this is a product of AI, if this is what it's doing to my own brain, it's not actually saving me time in this regard. And so for me it was like this come back down to Earth moment of I don't think I can outsource this to my creative works because that's what I got into this for, is to just be creative.
[00:07:30] I don't wanna outsource that. I don't wanna lose it. And I could feel it kind of like slipping away. Like I said, it didn't take long, just a few, a few weeks of experimenting and I was like, "Absolutely not. I'm not doing this anymore." So it doesn't touch my creative processes, no
[00:07:44]
[00:07:44] .
[00:07:46] Speaker 11: Hello. My name is Will-Myers. It's really just Will Myers, but my website is Will-Myers.
[00:07:52] The example that always comes into my head is, in college. I would go to the library to go study. I'm getting ready, and before studying, before, like, actually pulling out my notebook, what's, what do you do before you study?
[00:08:06] Well, you pull up your iTunes and you make sure that all of the albums in iTunes has the right cover art. You need to go find the cover art and match it with the albums because you obviously can't study until that is done. So we're gonna get that done, and then at about 3:00 AM, you can start studying.
[00:08:22] And that's how I feel like with a lot of this AI stuff. I just get way sidetracked with all, like, setting up the process, making sure everything's perfect, when that's not getting me anywhere. That's not helpful. I just need to do the work.
[00:08:34] I've still not found a good way to have AI manage my inbox, , and help me just keep track of all the various pieces. I spend hours Like half a day almost sometimes trying to get the perfect setup for my inbox, where I could have just spent a quarter of that time just going through my inbox and doing that, uh, and spending the rest of that time doing something else.
[00:08:57] So I don't know, just trying to be aware of where you're spending on some of these AI things, where it fits into your business, where it doesn't fit into your business, and where maybe it doesn't fit into your business right now. Maybe you have the good instinct of knowing, okay, this is something, this is a task I want to offload, but, you don't have the time, capacity, or you don't have the system set up for it, and that's fine too
[00:09:17]
[00:09:19] Speaker 13: Hi, I'm Krstine. And my website is Kristine neal.com. I think that, , working in our industry, it's easy to tinker, and I think we've all probably had those moments where a new tool was put in front of us, and we've all wanted to try it.
[00:09:35] And I think that there's obviously very mixed quality results that come out of that. , And none of them quite feel probably up to par. And I think that what's really missing is, , that we don't see ourselves in, , creative work that's generated by AI because , the humanity is missing. And, I think it's hard to be really, attached and care about creative AI work for that reason.
[00:10:01] It's really hard to, care about, , something that's ultimately machine-generated. And I think that it's really made me understand that if I want quality creative output, that I need to consistently be the creative input. , I know AI is getting better and better every day.
[00:10:20] I think it has a long way to go to match what humans can do in, like, a split second,
[00:10:27]
[00:10:29] Speaker 15: I am Sam Zelich, community events manager for Squarespace Circle, also the author of the Substack Culture Boy and other things.
[00:10:40] so I definitely have gotten the AI bug a little bit. I have used it sometimes for research. I think that it's pretty good for that. If you ask it a very sort of , niche question, it'll give you a list of things.
[00:10:53] You have to sort of beg it for, fact-checking and links, and then probably should do your own fact-checking verification after that. But as a sort of base level, a person who isn't very good at researching, I think it's pretty helpful with that. For personal reasons, I was trying to memorize all 50 states and their capitals and their, nicknames and their slogans. I just wanted to be one of those people. Felt like a good party trick. And I was like, "Can you help me do this?" And, it was helpful. Like, it'll give you a quiz, and we'll do that kind of thing. Where I do not want it encroaching upon anything that I'm doing is what I would consider my own personal style or my opportunity to engage, aesthetically with the world.
[00:11:44] I think that when I'm talking to it, I'm very careful to say, you know, "I'm writing a piece about the US Postal Service. I'm looking for a few answers," or, " I have this theory about this thing. Can you verify if that's true?" And I say to it, "Do not do any writing for me.
[00:12:01] I just want facts." So that, to me, is essential for all of us because if you are any kind of a creative person, you should want to maintain your own aesthetic, your own creative voice.
[00:12:15] Becca: Definitely some inspiring thoughts from our Squarespace community, and I would love to hear from you. How do you feel AI affecting your creativity, and how is it affecting your efficiency? Let me know in the comments below. Send an email to me, hello@insidethesquare.co. The number one takeaway that I want you to have from this episode is that in this ever-changing, fast-paced world of AI and this pressure that we're all experiencing to produce more and to really increase the amount of content we're sharing with each other, our human experience matters more than ever.
[00:12:46] I wanna make sure that if you are using AI to improve your efficiency, that you're spending that extra time being creative, and I'd love to hear what you're working on. Again, you can reach me, hello@insidethesquare.co. I'm Becca from Inside the Square. Thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to like this episode, comment, share it with a friend, and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website.
[00:13:08] Bye for now
