So much content to write, so little time. You’re not the only coach who feels this way. It can be exhausting to write large amounts of content over a long period of time. Many coaches we work with outsource their content writing because it feels like just another task on their already packed to do list. Reducing or eliminating that task gives them more time to work with coaching clients.
If you’re not yet at a place to outsource your content writing, here are some ways you can reduce the amount of time you spend writing content.
Why Does Writing Content Take So Long?
The amount of time it takes to write a blog post varies significantly. One 500-word article could take 1-2 hours, while other articles of the same length could take 4+ hours to write. That adds up to a lot of time for a busy coach to find to create their weekly content. Here are some of the reasons it takes so long to write content for your coaching business.
- Procrastination – Procrastination happens to all of us. There are many reasons why we may procrastinate; this article does a great job explaining them. Sometimes it can be overcome just by pushing through and using techniques like the Pomodoro method to stay on task. Other times the solution is to rest more and take more frequent breaks to improve your focus.
- Lack of content ideas – The most time-consuming part of writing content is often coming up with a content idea and planning the piece of content. If you find the writing to be really quick, but the starting writing to be the difficult part, then this is probably why writing content takes so long.
- Task switching – There are a lot of tasks involved in writing content. You need to outline the article, research, write, optimise for search engines, proofread, and add media. Having to get all these done in one sitting can lead to a single 500-word blog post taking a long time to write. Tackling your content by batching similar tasks together can reduce the amount of time you lose by switching from task to task.
- Research – Blog posts that need research will always take longer than blog posts that are in your zone of genius. This doesn’t mean you should never research the articles you write; you absolutely should. Inaccurate information in content would be harmful to your coaching business. This simply means you need to factor in research time and consider ways to streamline your research process.
- Writer’s block – Even professional copywriters and content writers experience writer’s block from time to time. Sometimes, you just get stuck on where to go next or how to communicate a specific piece of information. When this happens, we like to leave notes for ourselves and revisit the article later with fresh eyes. You can pre-emptively reduce the occurrence of writer’s block by planning your articles before you sit down and write.
7 Ways to Speed Up the Content Writing Process
There are a number of ways you can increase the efficiency of your content writing. Let’s look at some ways you can start trying today.
Plan Content in Advance
This is something we use in our content writing and it is a complete game changer. At the start of every month, we will sit down and plan out our content for the month. We go to our notes to pick the pieces of content we want to write, and then we plan out each piece of content.
To plan our content, we use a spreadsheet where we input the article title, subheadings, and keywords. We will also do some initial research and include links to useful sources. That way, when we sit down to write, we can focus on the writing. Some coaches like to load in their internal links and find images for the content at this point too. Your content planning spreadsheet should fit your needs.
Write First, Edit Later
We tend to break all aspects of content writing down into each individual task. As you can see from the above section, we do all of our planning in advance. We also tend to batch writing, editing, and scheduling content together to make the process more efficient. This is something that we’ve found helps our focus because we are in “writing mode” or “editing mode.” Switching tasks allows distractions to creep in between tasks.
Separating writing and editing stops you from being overly critical as you write. You don’t need to find the perfect word to express something while you write because you can always pick it up in the editing process. Think of writing content as getting your ideas down on the page and editing as polishing the article and making your thoughts stronger. A first draft doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to exist.
Editing is also more effective when you get to look at the piece with fresh eyes. Our brain tends to fill in information in an effort to be helpful. So, if you edit while you write or immediately after you write content, it’s harder to spot typos. It’s best practice to leave writing of any kind to sit at least overnight.
Repurpose Content
Not all of your content has to be brand new content. You can repurpose content from other sources to cut down on the new content you’re creating. For example, you could repurpose video or podcast content into blog posts. You could even repurpose old articles into a new super article that covers all aspects of a topic. We’ve even helped coaches repurpose information from copy or branding guides into blog content and visa versa.
Standardise Your Content Writing
The more elements of your content writing you can standardise, the easier it is to write content faster. It’s difficult to standardise the entirety of your content writing, but having a few interchangeable formulas or standardised elements for parts of your content writing can increase your writing speed. Here are some ideas:
- Set a couple of heading formulas so you don’t have to think of a heading each time.
- Prepare your CTAs in advance so you can copy and paste one into each piece of content
- Create standards for how to approach the introduction
- Design a keyword integration strategy
- Create a brand voice cheat sheet with commonly used phrases and words
Create a Content Cheat Sheet
A content cheat sheet or a content brief lists the expectations for each piece of content. It will talk about things like the purpose of your content and how you want to achieve that purpose. A content cheat sheet will also provide information about SEO strategy, brand voice guidelines, and quality guidelines. This is useful information to have on hand when you are writing your own content. It will also be extremely helpful if you outsource your content writing to a professional.
Note Content Ideas Immediately
The best way to have an unlimited number of content ideas when you sit down to write is to note them down immediately. Keep a note on your phone where you can add any content ideas whenever they occur and continue on with your day. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to remember that “amazing content idea” you had a few days prior.
You can add as much or little information to these notes as you want. Some of our content ideas are paragraphs long, and some are just a sentence. You can pad these out when you plan your content later.
Understand Your Productivity Cycle
Humans aren’t built to be productive 24/7. We have times of high productivity and low productivity in daily, monthly, and yearly cycles.
- Some people will notice higher productivity and lower productivity during certain seasons
- Circadian rhythms will affect productivity throughout the day
- Hormonal cycles will create times of higher and lower productivity throughout the month, regardless of biological gender
Understand your productivity cycles so you can work with them instead of against them. You can do that by journalling so you have a record of how you have felt throughout the month.