Poll: How long does it take to write a post?
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I voted for 1 – 2 hours – but really I take days – I usually begin thinking about the post at the beginning of the week and build up the confidence to post at the end of the week!
I’m exactly with you, Melissa. The most enjoyable part of this whole process has been the time spent thinking about possible topics and how to relate and connect them to other ideas! This has been great fun posting everyday!…. Brain overload in a fun way!
ya same thing with me. I like the process of thinking about possible posts. I get a real buzz out of it
Wow most people take 2-4 hours per post! That’s awesome! It’s important to put care into your writing! I need to do that!
I think the amount of hours spent also depend on the topic being discussed. I write a mostly political blog, so it takes me a while to be able to articulate my ideas.
One of the reasons I put “1-2 hours” is because I limit the time I allow myself to spend on blog posts. The other writing I am working on (my dissertation at the moment) takes lots of long hours of thought and contemplation and endless editing. The blog is the place where I allow myself to vent and be more open and creative and sometimes that takes less time. sometimes.
Once I come up with a subject – thought – I just start typing…most are less than 15 minutes! Of course, I’m new at this and my blog is mainly therapy for me, a way to just let it out! That’s the fun of this one. I plan on doing another that will be more business oriented, so there will be a lot more time and research involved – probably 6-8 hours of prep and set up work before i hit “Publish.”
The way the poll is worded, it might not be clear the distinction between:
a) Time spent in WordPress writing
b) Chronological time that passes between the time you start and the time you post
For example, you could spent 5 minutes writing a post. Then a week goes by, then you spend another 5 minutes and publish. A would be 10 minutes, but B would be a week. I’m assuming most people will give the answer for A.
That’s what I did, and that’s what often happens. Of course, 50% of the time I never come back to the posts I started with.
I calculated the time I spend in WordPress writing… that is how I read the question anyway…
This does not necessarily include the time I spend editing photos and conducting research.
Glad you asked this question because I thought maybe I was spending too much time (or not enough)… nice to see an average.
Como posto receitas e outros assuntos, rápido não é, pois procuro escrever tudo corretamente, e tem fotos a serem colocadas, ou ilustrações.
Geralmente preparo alguns dias antes, para depois postar.
Abraços Mina!
Anywhere from 10 mins to a few hours. I give thought to what I’m going to post first. Oftentimes, I begin a post, leave it alone, and return to it as the thoughts unravel over time.
15-30, but in some cases a LOT longer because of time spent scanning images and writing up some of the larger posts (the Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules take a few hours each).
But aiming for daily posting? Definitely aiming towards 20 minutes per post.
http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com
Depends really. If it’s a rant post or if it’s just sharing an anecdote, it’s a quick thing but if it’s something I need to think about, then it’ll take longer
True story.
It’s the editing that takes up most of my time… deciding the best place for a comma and trying to remember which i comes before what e.
Shows you have great care for your writing, even moreso than I do. I usually edit repeatedly after I publish the post. xD
Ha – I love how according to the poll 2 people have minions write there posts! I think I need a minion!
Most of it is done in my head before I even sit down to type. Typing out and editing take 30 min. max.
Start to finish is usually between 1-2 hours for me. The post itself generally takes me 30-60 minutes to write (depending on the length). I create the post in Word and cut and paste into WP. Then it takes time to find the right image and create the hyperlinks.
Writing includes research and translation.
If I’m just writing for another techno-geek to read, it would only take about 15 minutes to write a blog. But then all the non-geeks (a.k.a. people who got a life) reading my blogs will go googly-eyed trying to decypher the jargon, acronyms, and just plain bad spelling.
Since my blog is to help non-geeks with technology, it takes me about a full day to write it where it’s understandable, funny, and it can help people intimidated by computers.
— The Computer Cat
I probably spend four to five hours per post. Then again, I only began posting about a month and a half ago. I’d like to say my posts take longer because they are so well written, but half the time is probably allocated to grammar errors (don’t won’t the grammar police to take me away).
I never read the posts where people spend 4+ hours on them…way to wordy!
I must confess that 4 hours is closer to the truth for me… I mull over my topics and plan them ahead of time. The written portion of my piece might take less time, but I do additional legwork to get extra information, relevant links, quotes, pictures and so on. Then I spend time revisiting each post to edit and update it after it’s published… This is truly an ongoing project.
Invariably, there are typos, missed words, a misdirected link here or there and I correct them; this is actually what I love about blogging – you can correct errors after the fact which isn’t easy in printed media.
Every time I revisit posts to make corrections, I remind myself that books, even those written and published by the best writers, go through multiple revisions and are reviewed by many sets of eyeballs; to err is human…
I’d love to do it in less time and have decided that, if I’m to survive the PostADay 2011 challenge, brevity will need to become one of my blogging mantras .
Elizabeth
Writing the post is the easy part. It usually goes from concept to paper in under an hour. The hard part is the re-writing and editing. I can spell but I can’t type so there is a lot of fixing to be done. And, I like to walk away from it for a 30 minutes and reread it before I let it go out. I catch a lot of errors that way but not all of them as you already know if you read my blog. I cannot edit my own work. I see what I meant to write not what ended up on the paper.
In average it takes me from 2 to 4 hours to complete a post. It depends on the subject and on how much I allready know about the subject (my blog is called Permaculture for dummies). I usually make a concept in my head and then write it down… but I often have to make some research and then translate what I˙ve read. I am trying to write in a funny, light way as to make complicated things understandable and attractive for my visitors.
It depends. If its a picture post (which I try to do everyday), it depends on how well wordpress is working and what my internet connection is like, so anywhere from 5 minutes to 1/2 an hour. If its taking longer than 1/2 an hour, I usually just give up and come back to it later.
If its one of the topics on the post a day site I usually spend the least amount of time on these, mostly because its an easy topic to write about. Some of them have taken me less than five minutes, while others have taken me a good 20-30 minutes to write, but I would say the average is about 10 minutes from start to finish.
If its a post on religion or politics, those tend to take me some time, so probably closer to 45 minutes to an hour so I can make sure I’m getting my point across without sounding redundant. Though sometimes, I can write that kind of a post in less time, so it really does vary. I guess it just depends on how quickly I can get my point across.
I think the more important question though is how often do you post? I vary a lot. Sometimes I post several times a day. Other times I’m not posting at all, though I’m working on stopping that altogether with this post a day challenge. Writing helps me organize my thoughts, so I really do need to make a habit out of posting more often.
And I also think it has a lot to do with what your writing about. I don’t have a horribly technical blog or a professional blog, so my posts don’t get into as much detail as other blogs, which is obviously going to take less time to write. If your having to research your blog topic and look up links to send people to for more info, its going to take longer to write.
Writing a post…the time I spend on writing a post, varies, according to the post I’m writing. Sometimes when I log in to my WordPress account, I already have ideas on what topic I’m gonna write, so I only get my images ready, type, edit and publish! That’s about 20mins. But when I have no idea what I’m gonna write, that’s the real challenge. I’ll pace up and down sites on the internet; ranging from fashion to sports, to zombies and even sex (just to find out which one catches my interest) and when I finally decide on what to write, I gather more info, more pics, start putting my post together…about and hour or 2hours.
Sometimes, after typing my topic, I just save it in ‘drafts’ and decide I wanna write about soomething else!! All the work indecision brings
but hey, the interesting part is the posting, I usually get lost in time and sometimes, a little distracted from focusing on my post.
And yea, I always type directly into WordPress, no previous draft with Microsoft Word or some other written form.
So imagine this was a post…I guess I spent 12minutes
Usually 30 to 60 minutes.
Usually about an hour. Never more than three, including linking and research. Cliff
For me, ideas often come to me and are continually developed throughout the day. On the other hand, if some presents me with a topic and asks me to write about, it often takes longer. Generally speaking, I spend 1-2 on a post though.
30 to 45 minutes to write, one to two hours to polish
Pat Bean
http://patbean.wordpress.com
This is a tricky question. My blog is a diary of my computer (web) programming, so it is hard to tell where the programming and learning to program ends and where the post writing begins, it’s mixed. Sometimes the blog motivates me to write a particular script, and it’s tricky to write the script (maybe losing a day or two to study some features that turn out to be too complex to implement) and then document the process. And even when it’s not a script, it’s still a technical post, and takes a while to put together.
I voted for 2-4 hours, but more specifically it takes about 2.5 to 3 hours. I’m a slow writer and then I revise, revise, revise. This challenge is helping me out by making me write faster, but I like to doll up my posts with photos, links, tags, etc. and that takes some time, too.
This sounds similar to my time frame, although I do have fast posts, and I usually have multiple drafts on the back burner that take a while to cook as I add to them and revise over time.
I’m with you Olivia. I will start a post and then leave it for a while and go back to it. I will revise it several times before I’m finished with it because I end up writing more. Then find I have to edit and revise again. It’s getting easier but it still takes time.
It’s usually in the 15-30 minute range for me, but if I really get going on an in depth post, it’s upwards of two hours
I spend between 30 and 60 minutes WRITING posts.
I spend 1 – 2 hours per day reading and responding to comments, on average.
For my answer on the poll, I only counted the time I spend writing the post.
It can be as little as thirty minutes but up to a day or more when I have a strong point I’m trying to express. If I don’t have a good, rolling start within thirty minutes (no matter how long it takes me to complete the post) then I know it’s probably not meant to be and I let it go.
Where can I get some of those minions??
If you find out please let me know! I’m in big need of some!
Mine were gifts from a certain Goblin King.
And by gifts, I mean they ran away and I found them!
Maybe my blog will fill up with the crazy thoughts that pop into my head.
As most of my posts are an update on my fiction writing, between 15 and 30 minutes. But my advice and discussion articles take a lot longer, usually 1-2 hours.
It takes 30-an hour, well it all depends on what i wanna add more on it..And after that i will have to ask my loving husband to edit it for me, but most of the time it will take me 30-1 hour to write a post…
It really depends on the day, the idea, the post. I’ve written some that I am STILL revising, even though they were posted months ago. Some sit and percolate in my head. On average, though, I don’t have much time so I have to post quickly.
Woah that’s a tricky one! I usually start slowly, erase half of what I wrote, save a draft to open another post with a topic that crossed my mind, finish writing, try to spot grammatical errors, etc… I still edit posts weeks after they’re published if I find mistakes.
Point is: I don’t know :p
Some take a few minutes, others I work on for days before I’m happy with them.
My minions aren’t very speedy typers either so…
mmmm, interesting. I voted for 30 – 60 minutes. However posts that I did a bit of research into like this one:
http://stickinsect.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/outrageous-power-balance/
perhaps take a couple of hours. Short posts like this one:
http://stickinsect.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/number-sequence-puzzle/
take just a few minutes. I think it’s good to vary the length of posts. It keeps readers on their toes (guessing).
When I’m writing one of my typical reviews – whether for movies, music, video games, or other media, I typically take around 20-35 minutes in writing each one. At times I’ll simply draft out the basic “premise” then add the rest of the content when needed.
For posts like my Nintendo DSi vs Nintendo 3DS review, which takes time for research as well as brainstorming and gathering the proper graphics and tags with the aid of Zementa, total time spent may come close to an hour. Without Zementa however, it’d be a much heftier job.
For me, writing the post itself takes 30-60 mins, however, the hard part comes from deliberating over which song to put up. I’m aiming to do postaday2011 with a song a day to create a musical diary. I can spend a couple of hours more choosing the song, mulling over whether it’s suitable and asking myself, do I feel this song and do I feel like this song is something I believe in/resonate with and then I’ll put it up.
My average is 15-30 minutes if under 750 words. Otherwise I split it into 2 20 minute blocks over a day or so.
good knowing how long people take time out for their blog!
It depends on what kind of post, and which blog. On my technical blog (where i write about computer networking concepts), it takes 1-2 days to come up with a single post, as a lot of research and referring is required. On my personal blog, it takes 2-4 hours, if no research is involved (as I always like to make some images for my posts) and longer, otherwise.
From my experience, I tell you one thing – the longer you research and write better, more organic traffic (from search engines) comes your way. Its MUCH BETTER to write few good and well researched articles than a lot of average ones. You get a lot of readers for them.
Destination Infinity
On the days when I come to the computer with an idea in my head, it’s usually faster. I’d say 30-40 minutes. But other days I open the computer not knowing what my post will be (but committed to writing every day) and it can take 60-90 minutes or more because I’m toying with a couple of loose threads until something starts to take shape. I do love the postaday challenge! Thanks.
Most of my blog subjects just pop into my head and once I have the subject it takes about 15-30 minutes to write it and find a picture to post with it.
Fun poll!
I wonder how many people are using their blogs to post on specific topics, e.g. politics and world events, tech, food, education, etc. as opposed to using WP as an online journal of whatever happens in their day.
Good question. I suspect most people who use wordpress.com or wordpress.org to host their blogs are writing niche specific content. Most blogs you see online are in fact “WordPress” blogs, as they are the #1 selected for blogs. I suspect more of those involved in the daily/weekly challenge are treating it as a “journal.”
All of the niche and really interesting blogs I read are WordPress or Blogger, (and a few smaller ones on Tumblr or Posterous) but that’s just where the blog “lives,” it doesn’t dictate what it is about. I started my blog prior to the daily post thing so I never intended mine to be a personal journal as experiences beyond my own life and world are of interest to me as well. My niche is psychology (on WP) and photography (on Blogger).
This would be a good poll, I agree.
If you are looking for serious traffic, its better to write continuously on a particular niche… google loves it.
To be honest it takes me a while to post a topic. A lot of the time I save as a Draft for a couple of days and then go back to re-read it to see if it makes sense to me before I post. I can take me 2-3hrs, or a few days. I guess that’s a bit much, but trying to get better.
it changes what do you write abaout .And if you want to write in foreign language although you are a for me in turkish.But I want to follow others.That’s why I spend more time for translate while reading and writing.
On another note, Can I tell what I mean?
I can’t really say how long it takes me to write a post because I usually take notes throughout the week and then write a full post on Saturday.
So basically this is my writing process:
Non-Saturdays:
- create a new post draft when I come up with a topic
- add notes to existing drafts whenever I think of something to say, usually first noted on paper
Saturdays:
- create a sentence-based version of the next post (and maybe one more)
=> sometimes includes researching the topic and adding new notes before/while making it a proper text.
My latest post took me a week. Hahahahahaha!! But then normally more 2-4 hours. I have no idea why. There isn’t particularly much content, but it just takes me time to think about it. LOL
My latest post took me a week. Hahahahahaha!! But then normally I take 2-4 hours. I have no idea why. There isn’t particularly much content, but it just takes me time to think about it. LOL
Just starting out, but I find a post takes me about 15 minutes to write and another 15 to edit. Since a lot of my posts are about the writing experience in Linux, I like to include screenshots – and those can take forever to set up, especially if I’m doing a sequence >_<
So in total a post could take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. But I'm getting better at images!
Good point. For my WordPress blog here & daily posts etc., the times that I wrote above stand. However, for my business blog for photography, posting times are much longer. The blog here is more of a hobby. There, I have photographs, instructional posts or very long written ones and those take more time.
My post is taking me an average of 4 hours a day to write, edit, add images, video links etc. And if I’m not writing, I’m thinking about what I’m going to write in my next post.
At some point I intend to reclaim my life!
Julie
http://1961girl.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/enough-is-enough/
Wow. Under fifteen minutes? And I’m already having troubles with trying to NOT get distracted whilst blogging
I write about hand embroidery. It takes me on an average half-an hour for a post.
I wish it only took me a half-hour to embroider (or crochet, or needlepoint). It takes me days.
Usually it takes me a couple of hour. Yes I know it’s quite long and it’s not just because I’m writing in my second language but more because I need time to think about my post, to kind of built it already in my mind. Writing could take some time too but once I’m “launched”, it could be quite quick.
Of course I do need about 20 min to read it over and over and to correct it before to press the publish button.
I take less than an hour because treat my blog like my personal diary. It’s therapeutic and helps to be anonymous. The most time is spent on the editing and uploading of the photos. I want the writing to sound off the cuff so I leave it raw…just whatever comes to mind at the moment.
I am still at that stage where I am writing articles for posts rather than blogs. This has proven to be less than efficient time-wise. I am still around 90 mins to write and post.
i like to keep my post short and sweet so that I dont waste too much time reading it again looking for typos. I selected 1-2 hrs because since i started the challenge i now write 2-3 posts a day and schedule them for the future. and i limit myself to only 1hr a day maximum – school work is more important!
30-45 mins to write, revise, find a royalty-free image, then publish
Wow! I was reallysurprised at the time people take to post/publish. I am a less-than-15-minutes gal. I think if I spent anymore time on blogging, I wouldn’t do it at all. I like that it’s a quick composition that comes up in real-time (according to when I schedule it). I rarely go back an edit a post, either (unless I catch a typo) — I mean, I never go back and edit the content after it has been posted. Even my longer posts take about the same time because those are the posts where I am so in the zone with the topic that my fingers fly over the keyboard. This was a very interesting poll!
@Admin: what??
you do it in a less-than-15-minutes????
how it could be?
I spend for about an hour for a post of one page A-4 paper.
hmmm
Some times the longest section of time can be thinking about what I might write, then thinking about it while I write it and/or type the draft, then the process of preparing the post online, selecting tags and potential picture to go with it, then looking at the “publish” button before I actually decide to click it
I guess and average 30 minutes.
My thoughts pretty much progress throughout the day. My problem is posting. I do write down loads of stuff takes me minutes.
I don’t know how to write quickly unless I absolutely have to. My posts typically take 3-4 hours at least. Today I finally thought of a very simple solution: set a timer for 20 minutes and publish whatever I have when it goes off. I won’t do this with every post because some will definitely need more time, but I’m gonna force myself to do it at least once a week. Invigorating, really, because I don’t have 3-4 hours to devote to this every day.
Can I just say that I’ve managed to hit the writing wall so very early in the year?
Am feeling slightly uninpsired! Help!
It takes time to produce high quality content (about 4 hours/post for me). The result may not be high volumes of traffic, but the conversations and readership more than make up for the difference.
After having signed up for the Blog a day challenge, I must admit that the average time it takes for me to finish a post has gone from between 1-2 hours to somewhere between 30 mins to 1 hour. I have however experienced a 200% visitor increase.
It would be interesting to have them run this poll again in about 5 months and see if there is much of a difference.
I think it takes around 30 minutes. Because I, for myself, always develop my ideas in mind, I sometimes carry them with me for days. Most of the time writing happens when inspiration hits me and then it does not take long. It cannot take long, because you already know what to say and how to say it and if you just start typing the ideas and right words keep coming.
If I was to sit down and tell myself: ok, now you’re going to write something; and if I would have no inspiration at all I could spend a whole day sitting there without having written anything.
Ok, well today has taken me ALL DAY! I’ve given my post a title based on one of the suggestions which, by the way, I have filtered to a folder all it’s own in my Outlook. I have had a terrible time focusing today and just feel like I’m procrastinating terribly! My problem is all of the email, facebook, twitter, etc. notifications that I get…I can’t stand to not look into them! So, I’m about to take the advice given in a recent post…shut down my email & turn my phone to silent until I’m finished with my post, then I won’t get the notifications until I open email again!!!
As a mathematician, I am admiring the bell curve on the results. It really honestly depends on the complexity of the topic and the situation I am in the availability to create a post. It can be as short as five to 10 minutes to probably an hour. I try not to over extend my boundaries and take frequent breaks to think and breathe.
It takes me a good hour-1.5 hours to right interesting posts
I take 1 to 2 hr to write a good posts for peoples who like my posts
i am writing for you people this blog is yours its true