How I Write 4–5 Articles A Week In Less Than 20 Hours Without AI
The System Required To Produce A Lot Of Content
I promise I’m not an AI bot.
…, and I certainly don’t use one to crank up my output.
That’s not to say I’m against it or people who use them; I just don’t need one.
My content is generally based on my personal experience, which ChatGPT doesn’t have access to.
So how do I remain competitive in an era where it’s so easy to pass information to some AI for it to do the writing for you?
My secret formula is systems.
I create a system whenever I encounter a repetitive procedure in my business workflow.
This introduces structure and preserves the need for self-control while moving towards a goal.
As a result, I’m happier, and I get a hell of a lot more done.
On that note, here’s the writing system I use to create 4–5 articles a week…
Idea generation: 1 Hour
Ideas are the lifeblood of any content creator.
Without them, you have no content.
To show my appreciation towards them, I dedicate one hour every Saturday morning to coming up with fresh ideas.
This typically involves spending fifty-five minutes consuming content I’ve bookmarked throughout the week for inspiration and five minutes of intense generation.
The goal of those five minutes is to come up with as many ideas as conceivably possible.
That’s not to say I don’t get ideas while casually going about my day; I do.
All the ideas I generate go into my Medium Content Streamliner System, which is hosted in Notion.
I’ve got the Notion app downloaded on my phone, so whenever an idea comes randomly, I open the app and jot it down.
Outlines: 4 hours
You must sculpt your article before you write it!
Trying to create from a blank screen will have you overwhelmed in no time; the next thing you know is you’ve spent the past two hours doing nothing.
If you take nothing from this article but this, you’ll definitely see a change in your output.
Take time to plan your articles before you write them.
I like to batch plan; I spend 4 hours on the weekend expanding on 4–5 articles from my idea bank.
This works out to approximately forty-five minutes to one hour of planning per article, no more.
Come Monday, I have 4–5 articles already sculpted; all I have to do is add the details to make it engaging.
Writing: 10 hours
Client work takes precedence in my schedule.
The reason is simple: I can better forecast my monthly income from my freelance earnings; this allows me to plan my life accordingly.
Thirty hours a week (Monday — Friday) go towards freelance work, and ten hours go towards writing for Medium, which is two hours per day (Monday — Friday).
At this point, I’m not trying to create my best work. I don’t care if what I’m saying makes sense; I aim to put as many words on a page as possible in the allocated timeframe.
If it sucks, it sucks.
Another point to emphasize is this: I do all of my writing in Notion at first — blame Medium. Medium removed the feature enabling authors to write from their smartphones.
I don’t always like to sit by my desk while I write. For example, I wrote the first draft of this article in my car, overlooking a beautiful view of my house — I’m being dead serious.
The next best alternative to unlocking this flexibility is to write the article in Notion then import it into Medium when it’s time to edit.
Editing: 5 hours
I used to write then edit straight after…
Don’t be like me.
The longer you separate yourself from your writing, the more objectively you can view it.
Now, I edit for one hour every morning before I start my client work; this puts eleven hours between when the first draft is written and when I edit.
During this phase, I aim to make the article read like I was having a normal conversation with someone at a local cafe — nothing fancy.
I’d also adjust the title of the article, add an image, and links to resources I found useful while creating the article, such as similar articles I’ve written in the past and other authors' work if I used any to generate insights — note these details would have been logged during the planning phase.
Final thoughts
And that’s all, folks.
It takes me no more than 20 hours a week to write 4–5 articles.
The moral of the story is this —
You must build a system that allows you to continuously move towards your goal, even when you are void of motivation.
Implementing this strategy has shaved off 67% of the time spent on content creation without hampering my original cadence.
All it has done is kept me prepared when it’s time to write by focusing on the building blocks that go into creating an article.
Now go check out these related articles: → How to stay relevant during the AI writing revolution → Don’t just set goals. Build systems → Here’s the content creation workflow that made me over $6500 in side income for Q1
Thanks for reading!
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