Ever written a text and sent it to someone for editing, only to get it back with so many changes that you hardly can recognize your original text? Makes your mood drop, right?

It shouldn’t.

Over the years, both in the role as a writer and as that annoying person who edits other people’s text, I’ve learnt to take a very relaxed approach to people messing around with my texts. The reason is simply because the first draft is almost always a crappy one.

That is the main function of the first draft. Still, getting through the painful stage of writing that crappy first draft is a necessary step to ultimately penning a fine text.

When the edited piece finally arrives on the original writer’s desk, it’s may have been altered beyond recognition. Does that mean that the writer of the crappy first draft did a bad job? No. Every perfect text you read in the New York Times has been edited at least three times by different people.

So despite the many edits and comments, never feel bad as a writer of the crappy first draft. You are doing the hardest job. You are the one who needs to get going from that terrifying blank page, overwhelmed by all the possibilities of where the text can go. For every word you have chosen you could have picked at least a dozen of other options. But you didn’t. And your first and second reader may have found a better one.

Writer’s block usually stems from a world of perfection. We think we need to nail the point instantly and eloquently bring it to paper. Rarely happens. If ever. That is simply the nature of writing. And that is the exact same reason why it’s usually so incredibly hard to get started with writing, whether it’s a novel, a company report or indeed a LinkedIn text. We aim for perfection in a place where we can’t find it yet.

The beauty of AI for me is its ability to give me that crappy first draft. I’m left with the privilege of being the first reader who can take a stab at making the text better, more personal, more fluent (and indeed quite often more correct), altering the original text beyond recognition.

AI’s feelings aren’t hurt by my edits.

Not that it should anyway. I mean, it did the hardest job.

(This text was penned entirely by me though.)