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 related topics, but anything usually comes down to me jotting it down on dev.to and refining it from there.
When it comes to writing anything but technical, I tend to have an idea of what I want to write during the weekend, but nothing written down. I just hope I remember it in a couple days. If not, oh well I figured something out lol.
For curiosity, in this case, I decide to write this piece since @ben release some news on AI Disclosure for dev.to. It gave me a thought: "How long yall have taken to write one dev.to article?"
For Technical topics, I do write things down during the week. For example, on my article on "Git Gud", I write a list of git commands I tend to use more often on a sticky note. Then, I documented it on dev.to and go from there. This is more of a straightforward example, but overall, it takes me a week to have a technical piece finished. Compare to anything but technical piece, it's 2 hours lol.
Sometimes, I refined my article by me re-reading it (just like right now) or have my friend peer review it. My friend enjoys what I have written on dev.to and probably will join, even though he is not a tech person.
I don't use AI on my writing (as mention many times before), mainly because I want to improve on my writing and not falling into the habit of relying on AI tools. Trying to get out of the habit as a developer since I have notice I used AI more than I should for learning sake.
How long does it take for you?
I am curious since I notice some people publish everyday or once a while. I am wondering about your process of writing an article on dev.to and how long it takes you? Would love to hear your experience and your thoughts about the use of AI to help you on the process!
As a side note, this took me 40 mins to write this whole thing out, including finding images for this post lol.
Top comments (148)
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.
@georgekobaidze,
This has been my experience as well.
If the topic is a discussion of a technical concept then a few hours might be sufficient, after some initial planning.
If the subject requires code examples then I like to write and test the code before including it in my article. Equally, if there are diagrams, I like to prepare them before consolidating my thoughts into a post. This can take some time, days if not weeks.
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 :)
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