A friend once said to me: “I admire you – you write a LinkedIn article every week. I could never do that.” My reply: “Neither could I.”
Peter Näf
Zurich, September 2026
Sitting down every week and coming up with something entirely new? Unthinkable. I would have neither the time nor the patience for that. Instead, I write ten articles in a single week. After that, I spend a long period hardly thinking about them at all.
How do I manage to produce so many articles in such a short time? I have helpers.
The best assistant you can have
My helpers are time, a talented assistant, and a reliable idea repository.
About that assistant: no, I do not employ a part-time student. And no, it is not AI either – that is my second assistant and only comes into play at the very end. My first assistant is called Johnny. He sits inside my head and usually answers to the name “brain.”
But let’s take things one step at a time. Where do the ideas for my articles come from? From my everyday work. I encounter them daily in the stories of my clients and in the challenges they present to me. Whenever an idea for an article occurs to me, I immediately write it down in my idea repository so that it does not get lost.
Now my first assistant takes over. Johnny knows the topics I want to explore in future articles. Throughout daily life, he looks out for relevant experiences, recognises patterns, and connects themes with concepts from my work and my reading. He is brilliant at this. There is only one thing Johnny cannot do: He cannot write. That is why I record his contributions in my filing system under the respective article ideas.
Good things take time
And so the articles mature over weeks or even months. Some ideas never sprout and remain stuck in their infancy. Over time, however, certain themes emerge as being ready to become articles. For these, I expand my notes, write down initial formulations, and develop a possible structure.
Then comes the intense phase of writing. I usually work on several articles at the same time. Questions constantly arise, and I delegate them to Johnny. In the evening, I often review all my drafts and identify the points where I am stuck. Then I leave them alone. Johnny takes over. While I work, walk, or sleep, he continues searching for patterns and connections.
Once an article is drafted, my second assistant – AI – enters the process. I ask it to evaluate the article, looking at aspects such as structure, clarity, and the coherence of the argument. As an editor, AI is brilliant. It notices when the logic does not hold together or when I try to squeeze too many ideas into a single article. I then revise the article until I am satisfied. Finally, AI comes back for one last task: polishing grammar and spelling and removing linguistic stumbling blocks.
For me, the question is not: “AI – yes or no?” The real question is: “What is the most useful way to employ it?” AI is an excellent assistant. But my best assistant remains Johnny. He works around the clock – even while I sleep.