How to edit a ChatGPT draft so it sounds like you

The draft is done in ten seconds. Making it sound like a person takes longer, and it's the part most people skip, which is why so many feeds read like the same voice wearing different logos. You don't have to rewrite from scratch. You have to run a pass. Here's the one I use.

1. Cut the first paragraph

Chatbots warm up. The real opening is usually the second or third sentence, once the model has finished clearing its throat. Read the draft and find the first line that actually says something. Start there. Delete everything above it.

2. Replace the biggest adjective with a fact

Scan for the puffed-up words: "powerful," "seamless," "essential," "game-changing." Pick the one doing the most fake work and swap it for something concrete: a number, a name, a moment. The rest you can usually just delete. Nouns and verbs carry a sentence; adjectives are what you reach for when you don't have one.

3. Break the symmetry

If there are three bullet points of equal length, the draft is wearing a uniform. Make it uneven. Merge two, cut one, let one point run long because it deserves to. Human emphasis is uneven; templates are tidy.

4. Read it out loud

This is the step that does the most work and gets skipped the most. Read the whole thing aloud. Every sentence you stumble on, or wouldn't actually say to someone, gets rewritten or cut. "It's not about X, it's about Y" dies here. So does the hedging. So does the closing plea.

5. Add one thing only you know

The fastest way to make writing human is a specific that couldn't have been generated: a detail from your week, a client's exact words, a number from your own work, an opinion you'd defend. One real specific does more than a hundred edits. It's also what search engines and readers both reward, because it's proof a person was actually here.

6. End on a period, not a question

Delete "What do you think?" Land the point and stop. If a question genuinely belongs, make it specific enough to be worth answering.

The whole pass, in order

1. Cut the warm-up opening.
2. Swap the biggest adjective for a fact.
3. Make the structure uneven.
4. Read aloud; fix anything you wouldn't say.
5. Add one thing only you know.
6. End on a statement.

It takes about five minutes once it's a habit. If you want to know exactly what you're editing out, the full list of AI tells is the companion to this pass. And if doing this by hand for every post across several brands is the actual bottleneck, that's the part SelfSM automates, so the draft arrives already past step four.