“Work harder,” they say.

“Make more content and 10X your life,” they cry.

“But this stuff needs to be good, and I can’t keep up,” you counter, meekly.

“Go beast mode! Hustle!” They interject.

And you protest: “I don’t have time to produce a lot of content. Plus everyone else is faster and better than me. Why bother?”

Why bother, indeed.

Content is a tough one. We know we need to share plenty of stuff to get attention. We know we need to do it a lot.

But we don’t want to put out junk. We lack the time. In the face of a tsunami of content to compete with, it can feel like a waste.

I’ve felt the same way, and I still often feel a rush of cringe at the thought of needing to produce a lot quickly, and seeing no other option but to do so, if I am to make a mark.

So here’s the deal: Yes, it is in your interest to produce a lot.

It is also in the interest of other people who need what you can contribute.

Plenty of content; a rich portfolio; developed skills, and more attention is nothing but good things for your brand and business.

This is why it pays to know how to work quickly and make it good.

Often, working with speed is the antidote to overthinking.

Additionally, knowing that we can finish things in less time is motivating.

My strategy emphasises speed. Some days are easier than others, but here’s how — when it works — I write decent articles quickly:

1. Find a peeve that is bothering you right now. Something that is affecting you that you can feel. Where’s the pain?

Found it? Good. Many other people will share the same problem.

2. Next, you need to realise that we all know the answers to most of our problems when we spend some time searching for them.

Searching for a solution in writing requires typing for a while until you hit some insights.

Write down any solutions that come to mind. Go fast. Tap into the things that get you emotional, and spar with that energy through writing.

Have a conversation with yourself that you’d never dare do in real life. Be weird. You are allowed to because you are an eccentric writer. Fire away. You might type gibberish for the first five hundred words, but eventually, you will be given answers, which can be whittled down to the best.

This happens because:

You loosen up. You are not so attached to the outcome, in this process of speedy play, and therefore insight emerges through the gaps created in free flow.
More ideas collide within your chunk of text until you see the answer right in front of you. Perhaps it is a unique solution. Maybe it’s a fresh way of looking at it. Nice.

3. You now have a block of text that requires carving and streamlining into the final piece.

The way to figure out what to do with the text in front of you is to use what I call ‘the ladder.’

This is a vertical structure on which you pin the relevant pieces of text that will form your article.

Your ladder shows you which ideas you need to grab from your larger chunk, and in what order.

So then it becomes a case of re-ordering and refining the text.

If you lack pieces of the ladder in your text mass, do some further explorative writing.

Most people don’t have any structure or layout in mind. I have found it helps immensely.

One of the ladders I often use, is this one, starting from top (beginning) to bottom (end):

TOP RUNG: Identify a common gripe or problem you have, that the reader is likely to share.
FOURTH RUNG: Discuss how this involves pain or comedy, discomfort, and it sucks or is plain ludicrous. Make the problem felt by the reader and make them see that you also felt that pain at some point and that you are a lot like them.
THIRD RUNG: If there is an opportunity for it, talk about how others have tried to fix this problem and have found that it didn’t work (emphasise that you are the best solver to this issue out there).
SECOND RUNG: Introduce your solution — your take on it — how it has helped you personally. This can be something that helps soothe the problem or obliterates it entirely.
BOTTOM RUNG: Give them an idea on something tangible and doable they can do right away to start solving that problem. An action step they can use today.

Once you’ve ordered your points according to your ladder, you refine and edit.

That’s it.

Articles vary in structure and the order in which things are placed. You can use different ladder types.

You’ll see I used this ladder in this very article (cheeky!) and if you run through some of my previous writing, this structure is also in play.

Here’s my action step for you today:

This might be challenging for many, but I say what the heck…

Use a timer, and aim for the full first draft for your next piece of short writing, from scratch, within 30 minutes. That’s idea-generation to the first draft.

Edit afterward. This might take a little more time depending on how conscientious you are with it.

Speed is your friend here. Time is your enemy.

You might find that having this urgency, especially with an emotional topic in mind and a ladder for reference, will wake you up, and help you produce something quickly that others want to read.

Good luck.

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How to write articles fast (that people actually want to read)