WRITING ON MEDIUM

How to Find Time to Write 3–5 Articles a Week Even While Working a Full-time Job

Particularly for new writers who want to get ahead with their blogs

Why Write 3–5 Stories a Week

If you want to be a top writer on Medium, you’ll need to put in the work, which includes contributing well-written stories high in both quality and quantity.

Think about it. It’s just like anything else where consistency and commitment pays off. The more quality stories you write, the more people will want to read what you have to offer.

Another reason is the more active you are on the platform, the more likely the Medium algorithm will pick up your stories to show up in the feeds and recommendations.

Also, the more you write and contribute positively to the platform with value-added content, the more positivity will come back to you. What you put in is what you can expect to get out of this.

You should also be encouraged to read more on the platform, just as much as you write, as that is also a way to get noticed and reap the benefits of networking with your fellow writers.

Writing and publishing 3–5 stories a week can help you reach your goals as a Medium writer.

Working Hours vs. Waking Hours

So there’s only 24 hours in the day and at least 6–8 of those hours are spent sleeping.

And 8 of hours (plus 1 hour for lunch break) are spent working a full-time job (or even if you’re not working a typical 9–5, you’re doing something with these hours, so factor in what applies to you).

That leaves roughly 8–10 waking hours in the day to do other things.

Well, with life happening constantly, how in the world do you find time to write 3–5 stories for your Medium blog every single week?

Hmmm. Good question.

First Things First

Ok, so the first thing is to take inventory of what you are doing with the 8–10 waking hours that you’re not spending at work or asleep.

Look for opportunities to tighten up where you may be wasting time doing things that are unproductive or spending time on tasks that aren’t getting you anywhere in life.

For instance, how much time do you waste every day:

• Watching TV
• Mindlessly surfing the Internet
• Gossiping on the telephone
• Sleeping too much
• Playing video games (i.e., Fortnite)
• Hanging out over somebody’s house doing not particularly anything
• Scrolling through Facebook or TikTok
• Eating mindlessly
• And whatever else

Cut back on some of this and you’ll free up some time that you could use constructively to write.

Second Things Second

I would say the second thing to do here is to figure out how long it takes to even write a story.

For me, it depends on what type of story I’m writing.

Some stories will take longer than others because some may need to have more attributions in them, if you’re having to do a little bit of research and fact checking. Be sure you do this if you’re writing something in your article that’s not your own words that you got from somewhere else. Don’t plagiarize!

How Long to Finish a Story

If the story I’m writing is mostly my own words, or I’m writing from my own creativity, or maybe it’s a rant, or maybe I’m writing about something that I’m very knowledgeable about, then I can finish a 6-minute read story in about 30–45 minutes.

On the other hand, if I’m including facts and information from reputable sources or from other Medium stories, I need to have time to look things up. And I’ll give credit to the author or website where I get information to enhance my story, as appropriate. Then, the same 6-minute read story may take me about 1 to 2 hours to finish.

But it all varies still. I’ve started stories and came back to finish them the next day. Or, some have taken me more than 2 hours to complete.

But on average, I’ll say that a well-written, value-added story should take no more than 1 or 2 hours of your time.

Now you have something to work with in terms of figuring out a plan to get your 3–5 stories a week written.

Make Appointments with Yourself

Now that you know you’ll need up to 2 hours (on average) to finish a story, the next thing to do is to map out time in your week for up to 6 hours of writing to get out 3 stories, allowing for up to 2 hours each. We’ll look at how to make that 5 stories later.

So, this premise will assume a 40-hour work week of 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday. You can adjust accordingly, depending on your actual work schedule.

Appointment #1: Get Your Story Title Ideas

My advice would be to lean heavily on your weekends. So, on Saturday, you could take an hour or so to come up with your titles and subtitles. I do my brainstorming for coming up with story ideas on Saturdays, but stories ideas come any day of the week.

There are several creative ways to come up with topics to write about. Here are some that I use.

• Get ideas from Quora. This is a pretty popular one. You’ll see that more than a few Medium writers suggest this one. You can use the search to pull up questions in certain categories or you can simply go to the home page and scroll through until you see something interesting. Be sure to check out the suggested questions to the right.
• Use AnswerThePublic.com. You just plug in a keyword and the title generator will return long-tail keyword strings. This is a great website to generate writing ideas. The only thing is you only get one free search a day. To get unlimited searches, you’ll have to purchase the Pro Plan.
• Use free title generators like SEOpressor.com (Or just do a Google search for “blog title generator” to find others). With this one, for example, I plugged in the word ‘productivity’ (case doesn’t matter).
• I also get ideas from television, surfing on the Internet, conversations with people, random thoughts, something I read about, something I’d like to learn about, something I already know about, something I experienced, just about anywhere I can get ideas!
• You can get story ideas from reading other people’s stories, which could jog a memory or spark a thought or idea. Also, ideas can come from just reading in general. I sometimes get ideas from reading news stories or surfing on CNN.com and such.
• If you need help on creating titles, here’s a tip on that.

Appointment #2: Front Load Your Writing

It’s Sunday (or whichever day is appropriate for you to start) and now that you’ve got a list of story ideas, it’s time to buckle down and commit to getting out 3 stories within 3–4 days.

This way, you front load your goal of writing 3–5 stories for the week. If you push and knock out 3 stories within 4 days, then you’re home free, and the rest of the week is gravy. This is when you could push out 2 more stories to make it to 5 for the week.

We’ve already established that you need up to 2 hours to write each story. So, let’s map out a plan to get that accomplished.

I’m using a start date of Sunday as an off day from the full-time job, for this example.

Choose your first 2 hours. I’ll just use 1 p.m. to start for this example. So, we know we have set aside 1:00–3:00 to write.

• Set an alarm in your phone to alert you when the 2 hours are up. Let your family know not to disturb you for these 2 hours. Commit to no distractions. Unless somebody’s hair is on fire, let nothing distract you during this time — not your phone, visitors, the pets, nothing.
• Take one of your titles and type it into a blank story page and feel the accomplishment of getting this far and congratulate yourself!
• Quiet your mind and focus on the topic. Ask yourself what would you want to read about this topic as a reader. Ask yourself about the message you want to get across.
• Do some Google searches on the topic and see what comes up. I do this and it opens up many ideas to help me write my story. Doing this, you’ll also see where you can get information to use in your story but make sure you cite your sources properly.
• Take the time now to write your content. Once you get started, you’ll find the words to continue until the story is complete. I recommend shooting for writing stories that are 3 to 6 minute reads, so that you’re sure to fall within your 2-hour timeframe. You may get done sooner.
• If you need help with creative formatting. Here’s some step-by-step help for that.

When the first story is finished

When you get the first story done, then assess how much time it took to get the story finished.

Did you take the whole 2 hours? Or do you have any time left?

Now remind yourself — 1 down and 2–4 to go.

Acknowledge the accomplishment of finishing the first story for the week.

Repeat for story #2 and so on. The goal is to get 3 stories done between Sunday and Wednesday.

The Takeaway

The issue is not so much of finding the time to write as it is repurposing the free time that you already have and being COMMITTED.

Commitment is how you find the time to write 3–5 Medium stories a week while holding down a full-time job.

Be committed to not procrastinating, be committed to using your time more wisely, be committed to sticking to making and keeping writing appointments with yourself.

If you do, then you’ll be able to crank out stories like a pro.

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