For the past few months, my brain has felt like a browser with 47 tabs open. May is an incredibly busy month both personally and professionally, and unfortunately, with so much on my mind, I haven’t been as creative as I usually am. Lately, every idea felt recycled or boring and every creative project somehow left me feeling unfulfilled.
But after reading a feature in the New York Times about Taylor Swift’s creative process, I tried something weird. I asked ChatGPT to help me work like Taylor Swift. I’m not really a “Swiftie” although I do think she has head for business. And while I’m not a singer, I’ve worked with many artists and have always admired their creativity.
Now, I wanted the AI to analyze how she thinks creatively. I wanted to apply the systems, habits and mindset behind the sheer volume of output she’s managed to sustain for nearly two decades without disappearing into irrelevance. And surprisingly, the exercise worked.
The ‘Taylor Swift’ prompt I used
Here’s the exact prompt: “Analyze Taylor Swift’s creative process, work habits, branding strategy and output style. Then help me apply those same principles to my own creative work and idea generation.”
To my surprise, ChatGPT broke down several patterns that repeatedly show up in Taylor Swift’s career:
- She produces constantly instead of waiting for perfection
- She mines personal experiences for material
- She reinvents her presentation without abandoning her identity
That last point hit me especially hard. Because when you’re creatively burned out, you stop building worlds. For me, that often means chasing isolated wins. But the people who stay culturally relevant for years usually aren’t thinking transactionally. They’re creating ecosystems.
By using this prompt and applying it to my work, the AI pointed out something I hadn’t considered. Taylor Swift is prolific partly because she doesn’t seem emotionally attached to appearing “perfect” during the creation phase. In other words, it’s the process that’s precious, not necessarily the outcome.
That was a wake-up call for me because I realized I’ve been editing ideas before they even have time to breathe.
The second an idea pops into my head, another voice immediately jumps in:
“Someone already did this.”
“This sounds dumb.”
“This isn’t good enough.”
ChatGPT essentially reframed creativity as momentum. And weirdly, once I started thinking that way, ideas started flowing again.
Follow up prompts
After learning more about myself with the first prompt I gave ChatGPT, I followed up with several others. I suggest trying these to help your own creative flow.
- “Based on Taylor Swift’s work style, give me a 7-day creativity reset plan.”
- “Turn Taylor Swift’s creative philosophy into practical daily rules I can follow for writing, brainstorming and idea generation.”
- “Help me build a creative workflow inspired by Taylor Swift that balances consistency, reinvention and emotional authenticity.”
What’s great about these prompts is that all of them are reusable and can be applied to just about any creative project. One thing this prompt experiment has taught me is that Taylor Swift creates more than she publishes. And while that sounds incredibly simple (and even obvious), it highlights how the most creative people seem to maintain a hidden layer of drafts, notes, experiments and unfinished concepts that nobody sees.
So I started doing that again. Instead of obsessing over whether every idea was “worthy,” I started rapidly collecting fragments of weird observations, emotional reactions, random metaphors and things I’ve overheard to spark fresh ideas. After applying this, I’ve noticed that the fragments start connecting together, and these accidental collisions between thoughts have brought some really cool, game-changing ideas.
The takeaway
The biggest surprise from this experiment is that ChatGPT gave me some seriously useful ideas to consider and it reflected patterns back to me that I already probably knew, but had stopped practicing. If you ask me, that’s the sweet spot for AI usage right now. It’s not replacing creativity, but helping to unblock it.
If you’ve ever been stuck in a creative rut you know that it’s not just about better ideas, but about sparking intention and momentum to move projects forward. I plan on saving these prompts and using them frequently.
Are you stuck in a creative rut? Give these prompts a try and let me know in the comments if they worked for you.
Follow Tom’s Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom’s Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok.