It takes me 2 hours.
I am not joking. Usually, I don't have it "planned" before I started to write. Sometimes I do when it comes to technical re...
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It really depends on the article (duh), but let me break down:
If the article is very deep technically or in any other way, it can take as much as 3 months to put together.
But I've written articles in a few hours, the ones that don't require too much research but still send an important message.
That's fair. Anything roughly in a few hours make sense, but 3 months is crazy. Have you written an article that took months to do??
I have, this one for example took months because back then vibe coding was still an uncharted territory and before writing anything I wanted to get all the information and try it myself.
Writing it up took just a few days, but the research, observation, and practice parts took literal months.
I don't write articles unless I'm absolutely sure I know exactly what I'm talking about, that's the main reason why I can be really slow sometimes.
And then I have this one which I wrote up in just 2-3 hours, because I had already made notes for myself. All I had to do was turn those notes into an actual article.
Makes sense research and other notes takes more time than writing itself.
@georgekobaidze That makes total sense!
Spending months on the research and hands-on practice really shows in the final quality. I think taking the extra time to genuinely understand a new space like vibe coding before publishing adds way more value than rushing out a superficial take just to be early.
To give the developer answer, it depends. There's been a few short ones that I just type out and am done in a hour. But those are just times I want to talk or share a quick idea. Most articles take longer.
If I'm blogging about some thing I'm making sometimes I draft a post as I build. Just jotting down notes as I go. Other times I write the blog afterwards. These are built a little as at a time over several sessions. I will have to go back to the project and grab code samples or screenshots.
For most posts I will finish it. Let it sit in drafts overnight. Then read once more, do any editing then publish.
Great to hear Chris! I am wondering about your next post though. Haven't heard of any articles about your thoughts/sharing anything in tech recently (though you might be busy). Any plans on what you want to post next on DEV?
Codepen did a big update recently. I wanted to explore it but haven't had the time. Commit Your Code is this week. I used to tweet tid bits from talks back when I was on the bird site. but that's too short for a blog post.
Maybe I'll write on some take aways from a talk.
Depends very much how long it takes me to write an article. Some started spontaneously in 1 hour, but I usually still refine those later, or delete them. More crafted ones can take or or two days, counting ideation, editing, translation, and later updates, both here on DEV.to and on Open-Mind-Culture.org.
I still don't use AI much, except for helping me to structure and decide about intereseting angles and relevant content niches to avoid tumbleweed posts or reiterating what other already wrote a hundred times before.
@ingosteinke That’s a really smart workflow.
Once you identify that a topic has already been covered heavily, do you usually pivot the angle entirely, or do you just double down on a niche subtopic that others missed?
Thanks for sharing Ingo.
Can you give me an example that shows this in detail? How do you determine if something has been already written? Do you have to hunt articles and read them through?
It's the point that I don't want to hunt and read too many other articles. That's one advantage of AI over classic web search plus paying for a keyword tool.
In my post about image file sizes and "digital package waste" (not on DEV but in my own blog) I dropped several paragraph that I had already drafted in favor of focussing on what seemed more unique. On DEV, I have been writing and re-writing posts also about writing and the art of omission, like If Writing still Matters, How to Do it Right and Avoid AI Suspicion?
usually 1-2 weeks with technical articles. this one took me a month or so: dev.to/anmolbaranwal/a-complete-gu...
but the most fun ones are the ones I write within a few hours like: dev.to/anmolbaranwal/12-things-you...
Good stuff good stuff. It reminds me that whenever there are DEV challenges, that one I spend WAY more time. I remember the Gemini submission (that I won) took me quite a bit because I want to make sure the article is clear and concise as much as possible. Thanks for sharing regardless Anmol :D
I don’t really have a fixed timeframe.
Sometimes I can bang out a hot take in a couple of hours. But even when an article is meant to be provocative, I try not to just scratch the surface — there’s usually quite a bit of thought behind it.
If I had to put a number on it, though, I’d say most of my articles take somewhere between 4 and 20 hours from start to finish. Sometimes longer, very rarely less.
That's interesting. It makes sense to get it out under couple hours. I tend to have a good idea from the get-go but there are cases where it takes me a few days if I am busy during that time where I am not able to do it in one sitting. Thanks Pascal :)
The answer is...it depends. 2 hours sounds about right.
Most of the time i start on google docs and dump my thoughts, so i basically have a backlog of many docs with word vomit on different topics.
If i feel a topic is attention worthy or good material for explaining, i will probably create the sections i want to cover and make the word vomit a bit more structured. Some times the long format doesnt suit my content and this is when i turn to figma to make my tidbits (which it takes surprisingly WAY MORE time)
What it takes me the most time in long format (even after living abroad for 7 years) is to correct my grammar in English. Greek is a way more descriptive language and things doesn't sound "correct' translated 1-to-1. Also find sentences that convey the meaning that i have in my mind is generally hard. For this i use mostly grammarly, i have tried to use ai tools in writing but i dont like their style of wording.
Yay for my hero academia cover, i am in third season
Hey Alexandra! Thanks for sharing! Your structure is better than mine the way I read it. Also, yea, English is a language for most of us. For me, it taken years for me to understand English such as past, present, future tense, understanding sarcasm, etc. English was not my first language, even though I grew up in the US. I started learning via TV and shows and go from there. Works out surprisingly and still do to this day but less than before.
I feel like a fraud, but I never watch my hero academia actually. I saw clips over the years on YT and just learn characters from WIKI. I do want to watch MHA and I know they release the final season, but I am hesitant...because...you know...it's MHA
Regardless, thanks again Alexandra :D
I grew up in a country that the English level is... bad, we learn English in school and get certificates, but it is very common to not learn proper pronunciation, i also learnt great deal with movies and series. I didn't speak English often until my mid 20's. I was so embarrassed to ask anything in my first trip in Europe xD
There are wayyyy more engaging anime to watch, MHA is fun but a bit repetitive. I like feel good animes so i suggest to everyone these days to watch "The witch hat atelier" :)))
Just had to look it up and looks interesting. Have to put that in my long list of Anime to watch, though how is MHA repetitive since I didn't really expect it to be repetitive. I would expect other countries' English level is bad since it's not usually the first language. Can't blame really.
I can't spoil you the plot for you, but for me it got meh in the third season. Maybe because I like a specific kind of genre.
Most of them a few hours, spread across a couple of days. That's with AI help though. When I wrote them by hand, I would spend all week writing one. So AI has shaved off a couple of evenings 😁
Fascinating. How would you write by hand? Do you plan before hand or just ball?
I'd have a general idea, but just go with whatever came out. Then I'd end up moving things around and trying to organize it in a way that makes sense to humans that don't live inside my head. That part is what usually takes longest. 🤣
Sir, It's more like I get a good idea first, which takes like a day or two or maybe I already thought of that, and then write up just ideas and thoughts rough draft and take probably an hour enhancing it. And again an hour polishing the dev.to draft with images and receipts or source depending on the theme.
I would love to know how you get such amazing post ideas that all of 'em work always!😅
Thanks for sharing Dhruv!
I tend to get most ideas by simply just "day dreaming" lol. It's one of those neat things where your idea just pops up in your head and it's just "worthy" to share. There are some cases where there is little engagement to it, but that's okay.
I would say that ideas comes from you living life. Ideas generate based on hearing people from both sides of the spectrum, regardless of the topic as well as experience it from your own. Also, adding to a bit of personality of my article as well to make it unique, which also comes from my experience. Sometimes, it's okay to express differently from others.
It's also important to express your articles in simple terms. Having a complex article isn't really a flex as one may think because most audience won't understand it. I like my posts to be very simple, so that audience can resonate what I have shared and being able to jump into conversation easily.
Hope this helps. Let me know if any more questions you have. Thanks Dhruv :D
I'd like to know 1 thing though, I got sloan-the-moderator commenting my post had probably some AI elements which it id, the last post of mine. I wanna ask, is it good or bad to use AI for enhancing your write? I mean my post write up was definitely not all AI generated and was following the guidelines except that I didn't knew the AI disclosure, And do you always have to have disclaimer for use of AI or AI disclosure is enough?
Hey Dhruv. It's not bad to use AI to enhance your writing, though I would be mindful of how much you are using to enhance your writing. I say this because if you use it too much, it may look like a fully generated AI content like everyone else, which isn't good if your goal is to stand out.
Regardless of the amount of AI you used in your writing, it is best practice to have that disclosure. Explaining how you use AI in your writing is bonus points because it allows me and others to know how you used it in a good way. That way, you get feedback on the use of AI and ways it can improve your learning (which is always the goal on DEV).
Hope this makes sense. Let me know if anything else!
Thank you very much, TBH I did it for the first time in a post to like highlight specific parts, organize my rough ides, but I get your point. If goal is to become better at writing then AI-assistance is not preferable, won't improve your skills.
Again, Thanks!!
That's a difficult question! 🙀
For me, one article per week is probably the fastest pace I can realistically maintain, and each article usually takes at least a few hours.
For example, my current DSA View View series takes quite a bit of time because I try to explain the algorithms carefully and also create GIFs for the visualizations. I think each article takes more than two hours in total.
On the other hand, articles like my comparison of OpenAPI generators are completely different. That involved technical research, actually trying the tools, comparing them, and verifying the results, so from start to finish it took me around a month.
I have a lot of things I'd like to write about, so I think I'll just keep going at a slow pace.
Even with AI assisting me, writing a technical article properly still takes quite a lot of time. 😸
That's great to hear Nyaomaru! I am wondering if there is a piece you did that took more than a month to do? Regardless, thanks for sharing :)
I don't think I've ever spent more than a month just writing an article! 😸
Of course, building OSS projects or tools themselves can take much longer, but for the writing part alone, about a month is probably the longest so far. 😼
I guess it depends...? I do a lot of contrarian takes followed by engineering practices, self-reflections, and tutorials.
For contrarian takes, it’s pretty fast. Usually around 2–3 hours, assuming I’m not too occupied with work like code reviews and management stuff. I encounter so many BS practices every day that by the time I actually want to write about one, I’ve usually accumulated enough material to spit out an entire article. Some of these are things I’ve noticed way earlier but just never got around to writing about.
Engineering practices and tutorials take a bit longer and really depend on the topic — usually around 2–3 days. Distributed-systems-related stuff takes even longer because I don’t think I’ll ever be done verifying it. I’m basically just paranoid that I might be wrong somewhere, despite working with this stuff every day. I think that’s a pretty good instinct to have in me, haha.
Self-reflections take around a week or two, but never more than two weeks. There are a lot of questions I ask myself and a lot of things I need to confirm before I’m comfortable putting anything down in writing.
Good to know! Thanks Adam :)
It depends on the topic. When I write about something I've done and think might be interesting to others, I dedicate a day or two to it: I write in Italian, check that it's clear enough, add a link to the repository or my blog if it already exists, and then translate it into English for the community. Lately, I've discovered that talking about technical or programming solutions isn't my first reaction, because these days everything is already "thought" or implemented by others, and in this case, I prefer to comment with my own perspective. Right now, I'm more interested in discussing the impact of technology, such as artificial intelligence, on our society and the philosophical boundaries surrounding it, like my blog post about LLMs, asking myself whether they're just stochastic parrots or alien minds. Or whether AI will actually be a positive or negative revolution, what will happen in 10 or 20 years, how will it transform society? But there are so many ideas, both large and small, that run through my mind, often without a coherent logic that could be translated into a post for the community. It would be much nicer to discuss them in a sort of round table discussion where everyone contributes their own input.
It would be nice and greats themes for your articles as well. Brings in great discussing in this age of AI. Thanks for sharing Marco and great seeing you :)
Thanks, Francis! I took your advice and turned those thoughts into a full post. It's titled 'History Repeating Itself? From the PC Era to the AI Era: A Developer's Perspective on Enthusiasm and Healthy Skepticism.'
I won't post the direct link here to keep this comment from getting flagged or deleted (which has happened to me before), but anyone interested can find the link right on my profile page.
you can write your plan overview like in 5 mins. Setup my mcp server and let it write for you and post it as unpublish post. then make changes and add images, gif to your post and in under 30 mins your post is ready to go online!
Ugh. I sincerely hope this isn't a popular way of writing.
I mean it vary from person to person what they like and how they want to write. Simply, I prefer this way.
Like two weeks because first I investigate, then write down ideas by hand in a notebook, then I create use cases, then I test them with keyboard, screen readers and different browsers and finally I organize everything on my blog ahahah a really long process but I enjoy it because I always learn something new.
Sounds like a long process lol. At least you get them done in a couple of weeks. Was there cases you have to go overtime, like creating a specific article takes more than 2 weeks or has it been consistent? Any case, appreciate the share Mica :)
Honestly, with trying to get everything right and all the polishing it can be a whole day (I don't rush it) if it's not technical. I am not writing the article continuosly for 24 hours but...
Sometimes it would take my whole morning to reasearch and put together.
And if it's very technical it could be from 5 days to a week, maybe even two if I have to run the code again to get screenshots.
Hey Daniel! Hope you are well. Obviously, I would HOPE you are not writing 24 hours lol. What's consider "very technical" for your case and what article took you that long? Regardless, thanks again Daniel!
So it was the one where I wrote about how I built the 2D Racer in Python. I had to structure it, hunt for screenshots, look at data formats that will help people to understand(I think I added a table), and ways to not make it borring. So All this while also knocking out my tickets during the day. Then I draft it and then when I next have time, sometimes the same day sometimes the next day or two... I do a spell and grammar check before finally posting.
I usually write in the middle of or right after a project is completed or I've attended an event so that the topic is fresh in mind. For articles that are written when building the timing depends but I'd say around 2 to 3 hours on average but it can also take days as I'm refining or hitting a block.
In any case it starts with an idea I'm excited about. I write down notes and things that stuck out to me that I'd like to share. For other articles based on events I've attended it's usually about 1 to 2 hours.
One thing thing that takes me longer than it should is the cover image! Lol. I spend too much time trying to get it just right. But it makes me happy when I see them so why not!
Hey Earl! Thanks for the share! Anything but the image indeed. For images, I just randomly find a GIF/image for my article lol. Unless if I am doing a demonstration or a technical piece, then it would make sense for that image to be relevant. By default, I go with any image that fits the theme of the post I am sharing. Thanks Earl :)
Your GIFs are great, fun additions to your articles! Happy to share :-)
I stopped timing the writing and started timing the decide-what-not-to-say step. Most of my drafts die in a 10-minute outline where I cut half the points before a single paragraph exists — that cut is what used to eat two hours later as "editing."
Curious: for you, is the slow part finding the angle, or resisting the urge to pack three posts into one?
It depends on the topic at hand. Usually if it is blogging on dev.to in general, it takes a small amount of time since I already knew what I want to talk about. It's only a matter of "does it makes sense?".
If it's an academic paper, it tends to be more towards the angle of things. Editing is relatively easy in my experience when proof reading and having other read and provide feedback. The topic at hand and knowing what to cover in a professional setting is difficult.
Thanks :)
That split tracks — drafting is cheap when the "does it make sense?" filter is already in your head. The slow part is usually deciding what to leave out so the piece still holds under a professional bar.
When you write for work, do you start from the reader’s next decision, or from a topic outline?
Hello Glad to see you, I am Kane Lim from Hong Kong. I have over 10 years of development experience. I am writing this because your post was interesting.
I think the two hour estimate is actually healthy because writing is a different engineering loop from coding. I usually treat technical writing like a design review: capture raw observations first, build a logical structure, then iterate through clarity, correctness, and reader comprehension.
The most effective workflow I have found is separating ideation from composition. Keep lightweight notes during development, then turn them into an outline when the pattern becomes clear. Peer review is especially valuable because another developer exposes assumptions you no longer notice.
AI can accelerate drafting, but there is a real tradeoff when the goal is improving technical communication. If the model performs the synthesis, you lose some of the cognitive work that develops your own explanatory ability.
For me, a strong article is not measured by publishing frequency. It is measured by whether another developer can understand the problem and apply the solution.
Curious to compare writing workflows with other developers here.
You said it all. I've had very few that took up to a week to post because the writing inspiration is mostly drawn from my development process and testing. Some people are writers yet slow and other are not, yet they've got content. It took almost 2 hours to get a cover image for my last post 😂
lol. I am glad to hear that my reply was of some help.
I would like to get to know you better. Would you please contact me? t_g_@kanelim1997
Hey Kane. Will reply to your post soon but just a quick heads up, please do not insert your telegram in the comments. It is known for spam and it does get suspicious based on your activity history I am seeing from you. If anything, add to your bio. People will contact you naturally.
thx your advice
Hey Kane. As promised, here is my reply :) Also thanks for sharing :D
How would you determine if the developer can understand the problem while also applying the solution? I remember making a post about this whether the content is consider good for this case:
Debates AI use and content quality standards
How would you decide, whether the content is good or bad?
Regardless, thanks for sharing :)
Usually 2-3 hours or 1-5 days.
If I get stuck on a problem where the solution was hard-to-find but straight-forward-to-solve once you figure it out, I'd usually write a quick post in a few hours to make sure that solution was easier to find for the next developer encountering that problem. I find myself writing less of these in the past year though because AI has made it much easier to find solutions for these kinds of problems.
Then there are my more technical posts. Those can take up to a week. Writing the article can take days, then editing can take days more. I'll often rewrite entire sections of the blog and the example code because I'll realize that something about the same code made a concept hard to explain. Updates to code require testing to make sure everything works. It's a long process.
Thanks Tyler for sharing! A good reasonable time length for posts.
I started to see that based on your activity on dev.to. It's a sad reality imo. I am glad you are still around hanging. Gives me more hope to see veterans like you :)
Speaking of technical, I started to see less for my end as well. I tend to write posts that are more casual than anything. Brings in a lot of human connections like this one while still talk about anything in tech.
Thanks again Tyler for sharing :)
It really varies! Sometimes I can write an article in half an hour, but today’s one took me about three days 😂
Three days is quite a bit! Though it is normal tbf. Thanks Sylwia :)
For me I am just starting share some of my articles in here since I am very new at dev.
But I am planning to write as soon as I solve certain kinds of problems in here. Since it helps me understand more on the problems and others who reads my article. So it depends... probably every month imho.
Thanks for sharing Nyein and welcome to DEV as well! As long as you are consistent, then you will never be disappointed on what you will learn :)
Hope your journey goes well on DEV!
Thanks man!
I only have a handful of dev.to articles, but the ones I have are copies from my blog.
When I started blogging back in 2010 about more high-level topics related to tech, it took me maybe 45 minutes to an hour.
As my blog drifted towards more technical topics with a narrow focus, the time it took to write increased.
Today, nothing I write that has any substance takes less than 8 hours (or about 3 business days, since I still have a full-time job).
My most complex article took 60 hours and it has a reading time of only 24 minutes. I was researching the behavior of nesting in both Sass and CSS. That was because I had to read and re-read specifications, Github issue comments, articles, code, and even have email exchanges with a Spec writer. And in the midst of all that, I still had to write the content and have sensible code examples, too! And once I finished, I wanted some trusted peers to review it!
I've written articles like "You don't know HTML Tables" and "You don't know HTML Lists" that have reading times of 13 minutes, yet they took probably 40+ hours of work! (Because I'm reading specifications, creating and testing code examples, etc)
And the reason I mention reading time here is because there's a strong correlation between them: The longer the article, the more effort it takes.
And, BTW, I'm still a "pantser" in terms of writing strategy. It's not like I'm spending time just thinking about what to write!
Everyone's writing strategies are different, and I have no judgement for those who can do so quickly. Instead, I have great appreciation for anyone who is taking the time to put human content on the web.
Hey Paceaux and thanks for your detail share on your writing experience!
I would agree and disagree in this age. It does show effort if the article is long, but someone could run the article via AI and would probably take less time than if you were to write it. This does lead up to my following thought that you mention:
I am curious about this. How would you determine if someone putted effort into their article compare to someone who AI generates it. It's hard to determine that since...we are in the internet, but I was wondering about your thoughts on this. Thanks regardless :)
The reason some of my articles take 50–60 hours isn't because I'm writing a lot of words. It's because I'm doing a lot of work to write the correct ones.
A quote attributed to Mark Twain goes, "Sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one." And the meaning behind that is simply, "It's easy to write a lot of words. It's hard to edit them down."
When I'm writing longer articles, I'm doing a lot more research.
Sure, someone could. But all that means to me is that they wouldn't add the humor, the metaphors, and they wouldn't talk to literal experts and go down ridiculous rabbit trails.
You know I'm not actually interested in their effort 😛; the amount of energy someone puts into content doesn't matter to me. I care about the quality of the content And the highest quality content seems to come from people who are using their full brains to produce something unique and helpful on the internet.
think I’m somewhere in the middle.
The actual writing usually doesn’t take me that long — the part that eats up time is figuring out what I actually want to say, organizing my thoughts, and making sure the examples or technical details are correct.
I’ve also noticed that some of my best articles come from things I’ve already been thinking about or working on for a while. By the time I sit down to write, half the article is basically already in my head.
So I guess the real question isn’t “how long does it take to write an article?” but “how long have you been thinking about the article before you started writing it?”
a year, sometimes.
Really?...Is it more of planning a lot or just timing issues?
It usually take me around 2hours, I do take down notes of what I want to post while learning, then after learning a particular concept I'll make my notes into a post. I should finish all this roughly in 2 hours +.
HUGE variance. Some topics have taken months together in the right way. Some topics (and these of course seem to be the most popular ones lol) are purely throwaway thoughts/ideas that I get sudden inspiration for a write up in a couple of minutes. I'd say the median (trying my best to ignore those outliers) is probably somewhere just under an hour, purely for the writing (not including research, code demos, or anything else that goes into a particular topic).
For me, it really depends on the type of article. A short tutorial or a personal experience might take 1–2 hours, but a technical article usually takes much longer because I need time to test the code, organize the explanation, and make sure everything is actually useful.
I also think the research phase can take longer than the writing itself. Sometimes I spend hours learning or experimenting before I even start writing.
I’ve been trying to write more technical content recently, especially around Python and Django, and I’ve found that having a clear topic beforehand makes the process much easier. I also occasionally get ideas from developer platforms like Codecan.net when looking for interesting tools and projects to explore.
For me, quality matters more than publishing every day. I’d rather spend a few extra hours on an article that someone can actually learn something from.
For me, the writing itself usually isn’t the longest part; deciding on the structure and making sure the article flows well takes more time. Once the outline is clear, the actual drafting becomes much faster.
It depends on the article
Sometimes 5 hours and sometimes even up to two weeks
I’m actually curious about this because I’m planning to write my first proper DEV article soon. Do you find the writing itself takes most of the time, or is it usually the research, editing, and figuring out what you actually want to say that stretches it out?
For us, it’s usually not the writing itself that takes most of the time. The longer part is figuring out exactly what we want to say, researching how the idea compares with existing approaches, and then editing the article into a clear and convincing narrative.
It's also usually hard to get started. Creating a video by simply recording my desktop is much easier for me than creating an article. With an article, I first have to organize my thoughts and decide what message I actually want to communicate.
At Elanat, we usually write about introducing our own technologies, so the real challenge is not just explaining how the system works, but explaining the new value these unfamiliar paradigms offer developers compared with competing approaches.
it depends. for tech/product articles, it'll take long times to verify every details and arrange structures. for experiences/stories, just open mind and write as you will, long time but u cant feel time ticking away
I agree. Tech articles takes a bit because you have to verify and test to make sure the claims you make are accurate. For stories, it goes about anything as long as you are not lying lol. Thanks Neo :)
It depends on how it feels. For the first 18 instalments of the ongoing 36‑Stratagems series, with the outline already set, I could finish one chapter a day at my fastest. Back then I had downtime at work and plenty of opportunities to sneak in writing. As the plot progressed, however, the pace slowed down. Right now each stratagem takes roughly 2‑5 days, it’s hard to pin down an exact timeline. Everything outside the main story can mostly be wrapped up in half a day. Most of my extra time goes into translating my original Chinese drafts into English. I cross‑check translations and localisation across multiple AI tools, trying my best to get my original ideas across perfectly in English. I only publish once several models produce comparable outputs. Even so, I still can’t guarantee every nuance comes across exactly as intended, haha. 😂This is pretty much the best I can do.
A lot of work it seems lol. Good work regardless Xuling (Saw you made a post on about "My Book 'AI, Ego & Regret'", congrats :))
Without you helping me sort out my account issues back then, this book might not have been published. Thank you for your congratulations on the new book; it means a great deal to me.👏
I appreciate it Xuling, genuinely. :)
Great question! For me, writing time really comes down to whether I'm explaining a solved problem or figuring it out as I write.
A quick tip or opinion piece might take few hours, but anything involving code samples, setup, or technical edge cases usually takes a few days of drafting, testing, and editing. I also find that letting a draft sit overnight before hitting publish makes a huge difference in clarity.
It depends on the topic, the amount of research required, and the desired length of the article. Some articles may take around 2 hours, while more detailed or research intensive pieces can take 3 to 4 hours or even several days. The main goal is always to create a well-written, accurate, and engaging article that leaves the reader satisfied.
Hey Fire! Hope you are well.
It's always the goal indeed. Sometimes it gets tricky because each author has its own audience. Though, it's less difficult once you start to get people reading your piece of work :)
Thanks for sharing :D
It takes me so many days of active concentration whether it's technical or not! I often have a good idea of what i want to communicate, but it takes me a long time to come up with the right way to express it. The way that makes it feel visceral and intuitive.
The saying is accurate: "if i had more time i would have written a shorter letter" 😅
Depends entirely on whether the thing was already written in my head. The ones that come out of something I actually did take about an hour. The ones where I sat down having decided to write a post take four, and they're usually the worse ones.
the editing takes a lot of time. I mean if you try to write it totally himself with or without a little help from AI (honestly it is not much of help at all) with proper research or your own findings.
It takes a lot of time to just elaborate it properly with highlighting the right points which explains the main context for writing the articles.
On top of that, the markdown syntax, if you wrote it in plain texts and give it to ai, nope it doesn't properly return a complete file which you you can just copy-paste and publish your articles. At the end, you have to do it manually. And that man, i am telling you, takes a lot of time.
i don't know, may be i miss something, and i am open for discussion if anyone want to. Fell free to comment and also if you'd like, can check my articles on my profile.
Everything I've written so far is pretty basic, so it takes like 10 minutes on average.
That is quite quick Joel! Is it that you already know the topic in mind and just go in one sitting or is there usually planning beforehand? Regardless, thanks again :)
Because most of my write-ups are on small projects I made, I already have the baseline, which means I just explain my thought process while building it. That doesn't take a lot of time at all
Everyone has their own style I guess. Here is how I work -
So, bottom line - article idea seed is planted 2-3 months before, article nuggets are collected over the week, putting it all together is the quickest path. I use Ai to save, read, split, proof read, use different personas and so on. Ai helps me come up with refining hooks, better titles or subtitles - it gives me options to choose from and so on :) it helps me pull data or file for reference which would have taken me hours to do
I would love to hear how you all are doing this
My mind is my biggest enemy on this one. Writing the article is about 30mins-45mins on my end (1 hours tops). But thinking about on "what to write" is what lengthens the process for me. It takes me weeks to decide. Sometimes I think maybe I'm just overthinking it.
For now, I think one article per month is a good balance for me. Two articles if I get really inspired haha! Just hoping one day, I'll get more consistent into writing blogs.
Can't wait to see what you will post for this month lol. Thanks Elmar :)
My pipeline articles take 3-4 hours, but not for the reason I expected. The writing is maybe 45 minutes — the other 3 hours go to getting real numbers: deploying the same toy app to three free tiers, timing cold starts, re-running the benchmark when one provider has a bad day. The posts where I skipped that step and wrote from memory are exactly the ones that got zero traction, so now I treat measurement time as non-negotiable.
One trick that cut my drafting time roughly in half: I keep a plain-text 'evidence file' open in a second terminal tab while I test things — raw command output, timestamps, the one surprising number. When I sit down to write, the article is basically already there; I'm just connecting the dots.
Does anyone else draft during the experiment instead of after it, or do you keep the two phases strictly separate?
I don’t write that much from dedication but I definitely read a lot. And even with your article, I started reading it at 12:00, and now it’s already 12:37. So basically, I take a little more time to read.
30 min is crazy work for a 2 min article lol.
As English is not my first langauge it usually takes me about 3hours.. Including writing draft, revising the article, etc.
My things are usually very technical, so it does take me around an hour. But I work the opposite of how everyone usually works, I use AI to draft it, then I improve it manually.
Mostly because I use the same agent that updated my documentation, so it's got a fresh set of benchmarks, etc. ready. Once it writes the draft with all the technical benchmark data, code snippets, etc. I write in the human element (though it often sounds AI generated tbh). Not many different ways to write it other than highly technical writing.
I'd say anywhere from 6hrs(smaller content) to about 3 days(more in-depth project/idea discussion). With AI writing small content is easier but I still like typing and getting more
thoughts out.
Because I'm usually busy doing other stuff, I wind up working on articles for days 😅
Fair enough lol. Glad you are still on DEV. How are things?
I've been under the weather and also busy with contract work. I really REALLY want (and kinda need, for my resume) to write some more blog posts but I haven't had time 😭 what about you?
Been really busy lately. I am on a thread of thinking making a "goodbye for now" post while still being active on DEV, just being the DareDevil of DEV (moderating on the platform and commenting) because of busy stuff lately. But who knows.
I tend to write when I achieve a technical milestone or when I understand a technical concept or problem properly.
Depends how much effort you put into the article .
Its depend on the topic we choose. if its deep research topic, then it will take hours to present that research topic in a presentable manner.
That's fair. Thanks Mayuresh!
3 thousand years 🤣😂
Wild lol
I usually write about itch cases of pain in my routines. That's all.
2 hours? that's speedrunning fr. technical ones take me days sometimes lol. but yeah writing without AI just feels more authentic. 40 mins for this is crazy fast ngl
lol yea. To be fair, this article isn't technical so it's much faster for me to brain dump and refine it with fun GIF/images to go along with it.
Guys what is even writing??
normal humans that still respect the process of crafting something from scratch.
yeah i agreewith you
lol
Are you write it totally by hands?
yep
I guess it depends on what I'm writing about! I can bang something quick out in a 15-20 minute session, but technical deep dives and the like take a lot longer.
Fair enough. Thanks Kayley!
only for those who have watch this anime {my hero academia}
Thanks for sharing
No problem! Thanks for reading Flippy :)
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Several days and sometimes weeks and that is the reason that I don't write so often. It is rewarding but also exhausting.
Average 4hrs, but if working on something deep may take 14-24hrs.
I agree with you Francis! It take me about a few days to write a technical article. I have to think of the idea at the end.
I think it took me 2 days. I needed to check the details before publishing.
I have a lot of article ideas, and sometimes I need to study the subject and build a POC first.
I can't believe I spent 3 months writing for a fee
wym?
Too long but for cross posting few seconds zyvop.com
Honestly for me it doesn't take long. All I need is the key topic drafted out, then I refine my writing and batch it. That way, I don't have to keep writing a novel everyday and rather focus on what needs learning the next day