Is it really possible to write quality blog posts within 60 minutes?
Why we may not need more writing
In many, many sources I’ve seen advice along these lines:
Don’t overthink, you don’t have to take longer than 1 hour to write a blog post. Just post it!
Some advice givers will even say that it’s the norm today. One of the bloggers I follow claims to have written most of her blog posts within 1 hour and on the phone.
I find it genuinely mind-boggling as most of her articles count over 2,000 words and are pretty good pieces of writing. My question is:
How come ONE can produce something like that in (less than) 60 minutes?
Does it mean that you have to compromise on the quality, informativeness and uniqueness of your posts?
So I’ve started paying attention to how I produce my content and how much time it takes me. Interestingly, or rather not surprisingly, it all depends on the topic, but sometimes research itself can take a good few days.
Even when I keep writing, with no need for research and without a break, producing quality material takes much longer than 60 minutes.
And no: I’m not the type of person who keeps sitting at her desk, unable to produce a word (although writer’s block happens to me, too).
When I write about my own experiences, it’s much easier, quicker and usually there’s just a flow of thoughts. But writing, structuring and proofreading the post still takes a good few hours. I also recheck my posts the following day to pick up on spelling mistakes, confusing sentences and the like.
To add to this, currently I’ve got a lot of unpublished materials, i.e. thousands of words I wrote in the past but haven’t published yet. So the work is almost done, but making these materials bloggable and sorting out images still take me more than 1 hour.
So how is it possible? How come some writers allegedly produce quality blog posts within 60 minutes?
First, I find it hardly believable that any fresh/ longer /quality content can be produced that quick. To put some thought and heart into your writing, it takes time.
Second, I believe that putting together quality blog posts, even longer, is possible to be done within 60 minutes, if some conditions apply:
- You just write what’s on your mind, 60 minutes on end, then your editors make it readable, well-structured and correct (or they don’t).
- You use an automated solution that somehow prepares pieces of text for you: you keep posting and reposting, but you don’t actually produce any personal, fresh or unique content.
- You have people write stuff for you and your 60 minutes are the final stage of the process.
No shortcuts: set the right expectations
Many influencers, content tycoons and six-figure bloggers claim to have their posts ready almost instantaneously. As they’re usually authors of tens of freshly posted articles, it makes me wonder:
Can they really manage to write so much stuff (and so often) on their own, having to manage their wealth and resources on top of that?
Based on my time-your-writing experiments, I think it’s hardly possible.
The bottom line:
It’s good to encourage (aspiring) writers to write, but why give them false beliefs and encourage them to write blog posts within 1 hour?
I’ve been a professional writer for many years, I know other professional writers and I know that it’s normal that we take more time to produce content.
Of course there was a moment when I doubted my time management: Hey, I don’t produce my complete (quality & fresh) blog posts within 1 hour, am I really a writer? And how is it possible to write articles in such a speedy way?
Well, it’s not. At least more often than not. We shouldn’t risk making writers, especially the budding ones, doubt their own skills and the ability to write quality articles in an efficient way.
Often there are no shortcuts and that’s ok.
It’s not about mulling over writing: watch your creative clock
I’m not trying to say that we should slave away at our desks and take days to produce content, although sometimes research can take time. Our brains sometimes need more time, too: we’re human, not Google Translate tools.
Sometimes it can also be easier to work on a topic in bursts of creativity: 1 hour today, 2 hours tomorrow, 30 minutes the following day and .. there you have an amazing blog post written at your most creative moments, with a fresh mind, not within a pre-scheduled 1-hour slot.
You can definitely help your creative flow, but, from my experience, at times you may not be able to time (tame) it.
I believe that in many cases it’s not workable to schedule your most creative time and squeeze it into a 60-minute time slot.
I’ve learned to watch my creative clock and work according to this. If it’s difficult for me to generate ideas and sentences, I do other tasks in between or take a walk in the forest. I usually get my creativity back within an hour.
Beware, though!
It’s easy to mistake a short distraction helping to put your mind back on track for procrastination and the false belief that you need to wait for (divine) inspiration. This hardly ever happens.
Sometimes you just have to start writing. You need to force yourself, especially when you’re a budding writer. No excuses, such as:
- I don’t have time.
- I’ve got writer’s block.
- I have no ideas.
- I’ll do it later.
- I’m tired.
- I’ll never get published.
- I need a very good idea before I start.
- … and so on.
Save yourself from wasting your energy and time on worrying about finding time for writing or about the quality of your non-existent work. You just need to start writing. That’s all it takes, but this very first step seems so difficult for many aspiring writers.
Posting daily is not that innocent
To reiterate:
It’s ok to spend some time on writing an article. Quality writing usually takes longer than 1 hour and we really need more quality and less noise on the Internet.
What I’m worried about are the tips encouraging bloggers to simply post something fresh daily, to signal to Google, or whatever, that there’s something going on on their websites/profiles. I don’t find it promising if there’s so much focus put on the quantity, not the quality of posted materials.
Timed writing may result in a lot of materials that shouldn’t be out there: often the language is poor, there are mistakes, no fresh insights and nothing informative or new. Such materials often add to the overall Internet noise and make it much harder for quality writers to stand out and shape quality readers.
Writing this article
Writing the first draft of this article, around 1,300 words, took me about 1 hour (I timed it). I was writing without a single break and no research was required. Then it took me more time to structure and rework it, choose images and recheck it with a fresh mind. Eventually it took me several hours, spread across a few days.
This is how I go about articles: I take time and multiple days to maximize their quality and readability.
I also watch my creative clock because it affects my efficiency and the quality of what I produce and share with the world.
I believe in publishing articles regularly, but I’m extremely wary of posting articles daily, just for the sake of posting and satisfying algorithms.
We don’t need more articles, we need more quality ideas and (quality) readers. Writers, please take your quality time!
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