Jan 14, 2011 / Polls

Poll: How long does it take to write a post?

As part of today’s  fun, here’s a poll. I’ m curious how long it takes people to create a new post and get it ready to publish.  Of course some posts take longer than others, so answer on average.

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  1. 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! 🙂

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    1. 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!

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  2. 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!

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    1. 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.

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  3. 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. 😉

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  4. 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.”

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  5. 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.

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    1. 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.

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    2. 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.

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  6. 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!

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  7. 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.

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  8. 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

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  9. 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 🙂

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    1. Shows you have great care for your writing, even moreso than I do. I usually edit repeatedly after I publish the post. xD

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  11. Ha – I love how according to the poll 2 people have minions write there posts! I think I need a minion! 🙂

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  13. 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.

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  15. 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

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  16. 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).

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  18. 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

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  19. 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.

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  20. 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.

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  21. 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.

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  22. 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 😉

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  25. 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.

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  27. 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.

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  28. 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.

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    1. 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.

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    2. 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. 🙂

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  29. 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

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  30. 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.

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