Why I use Chat GPT for my Show Notes

Why I use Chat GPT for my show notes

I believe in being totally transparent, so when I discovered that Chat GPT could write my show notes… Well, I was blown away, and also a little wary, After all, while I am no expert I know that there are copyright and ethical concerns with the tool that made me pause before diving in. 

So, I guess primarily due to that concern, I decided to take a couple minutes and write down the primary reasons why I began to use this tool, what drove me to this decision, and how I think this can be done within an ethical framework. 

Podcast production workflow

However, before we get there, it is important that I pull back the curtain a little bit and explain how I create a podcast episode. To put this into perspective, the only time I have to work on the Bookclub right now is 4:30 AM- 6:30 AM, M-S. Thats ALLL the bookclub tasks, not just the podcast.

Step 1- Scripting- I use a semi scripted style for each podcast, similar to a detailed powerpoint. While I do not write down every word I say, I spend a lot of time breaking down the story that I think each article is telling and translating that into an outline of the episode. Depending on how difficult to navigate the article is, sometimes I am directly quoting off my script, and sometimes I and sometimes I am simply talking from one or two bullet points per minute. This step usually takes me about 30 minutes per article

Step 2- Recording- The easy part! Or at least, it is until I get to the third episode of the day and my voice is killing me.. Now that I have a nice little setup, all it takes more me to record is to flip on the camera, mic, lights, and change shirts into something semi-presentable! At that point, I just roll right into it, with each episode taking me about 30+ minutes to record.

Step 3- Editing- Now we start to get to the time consuming part. See, because I am obsessed with audio quality, I made the decision to record each podcast audio on a separate mic and record the video on an HD camera. That means that I have to line up the audio perfectly and splice them together. This usually takes me about 15 minutes, including transferring over the files and exporting the final product. At that point, I plug the file into the program Descript for editing. I go through line by line and ensure that all mistakes are edited out, as well as the intro and outro are set. This is also where I curse myself for rambling on for 3 minutes about nothing, and delete the whole section. This usually takes me about 45 minutes, and that is only because I am REALLY fast after practicing for so long haha.

Step 4- Transcription- For the final step (of the production) I continue to use descript and go through the transcript word for word until I am satisfied. While it is not perfect, I want to make sure that anyone using the transcript to consume the content has a good experience. This takes me another 45 minutes or so.

Step 5- Everything else- Now comes the real time consuming part… all those tiny steps that don’t really fit into task analysis but have to be done. Scheduling on one program, formatting graphics on another, clipping out and creating Instagram reels (don’t get me started on how long that takes…) and so much more. While I am pretty fast at all these steps, I add on another hour or so just to make sure everything is lined up. This does not include any caption writing or blog post writing.

Barriers to creating content

So, with all that above, I hope you can understand how much time goes into the production of this podcast… and because there is so much production time, it leaves much less time for other things. After all, life is one big matching law equation, and my time spent in one place cannot be spent somewhere else. 

Let’s talk about blogging for a second. The reality is, no matter how fast I learn how to type, or how much I want to write a book, I am NOT a born writer. I do not have that skill, nor have I spent the time cultivating that skill as others. Teacher, speaker, clinician, those are all skills I have carefully cultivated and consider myself very good at! But not writer. And therefore, my blogs are… rough. Sure, I can spin out a good blog, with an engaging story and a great lesson, but DAMN does it take me a long time. Writing is just slow for me, and it creates a big problem…

I so badly want to blog, but I do NOT have the time

That is my primary problem. When faced with the choice of writing an engaging show notes blog per each podcast episode or putting out two high quality episodes a week with no blog, I chose the latter. Or so I thought. Chatting with a fellow content creator, it seems that I actually didn’t have to choose, and Chat GPT was the answer all along!

Why I am using Chat GPT to write my show notes (and how)

Chat GPT is incredibly powerful, and one of the things it is so good at is synthesizing information. But it has a glaring weakness… It needs SOMETHING to synthesize. Let’s take an ABA research article. I cannot just copy and paste that into the chat and it spits out a summary. At least, it will not spit out a summary that is up to par with someone like me, who has been in the field for years, spoken with thousands of practitioners, and is obsessed with clinically practical dissemination. Sure, it might give me something, but I don’t think the quality would be close to what you expect and what you find useful.

However, what if I gave it something clinically practical and already disseminated to synthesize… 

AKA, what if I took the transcript that I spend so much time on, fed it into Chat GPT, and THEN asked it to summarize it for me!? Now, what we are doing is giving it correct information to summarize, making sure its practical for clinicians, and giving me 2 hours of my time back, as it writes a blog that is the perfect accompaniment to my podcast. 

Weaknesses of Chat GPT

When I realized this, I was pretty damn excited, and I started thinking about the possibilities… A fully formed blog for EVERY podcast? That is  a dream, and seemed too good to be true. And of course, it was somewhat too good to be true. There are some weaknesses and worries that I have about Chat GPT, which is why I am writing this post. Here are the main ones I see…

1. Chat GPT is not always accurate- I see memes all the time about how some content creator or even a professional uses Chat GPT to do their job and then everything is totally wrong. That is why, instead of Chat GPT just pulling information from the internet, I am asking it to specifically ONLY summarize the transcript I give it, and then I carefully edit it to make sure the content is accurate. 
2. Chat GPT doesn’t write high quality content- Totally agree. Which is why I will be the first one to tell you, if you want high quality, written blogs, The Behaviorist Bookclub is NOT the place for you. Maybe someday when I can hire someone, but right now, its a one-man show! So, no, the blog will not be incredibly high quality, BUT the information it is summarizing is, so instead of using the blog as your primary tool, use it as a secondary source of information and a reference.
3. It is lying to use Chat GPT to write content- IS IT? I would argue it is lying to not CITE Chat GPT, and clearly state, as I have done, that I am only editing, not writing the content. And furthermore, the information it is summarizing, is my own intellectual property… It is my transcript from my podcast that I created. So I would argue since its my work, there is no stealing going on.

Conclusion

Well, this post kind of rambled and I am not sure if it even accomplished what I wanted, but I guess the conclusion is this… Yes I use Chat GPT to write blog posts accompanying my podcast, and I think thats ok because I do not claim ownership over that work and the information it summarizing is my own. 

I want to emphasize, there are MANY other places to get better quality written content, and I encourage you to seek them out. But if you are looking for a podcast add on, then I hope you enjoy Chat’s show notes!