When you shouldn’t publish that article
At some point in my life, I brainwashed myself with Gary Vee.
I woke up with him; I listened to him during my commute and devoured everything he ever created online.
His advice?
Everything is content.
Publish 10–30 pieces of content daily on Twitter.
Publish 50–100 pieces of content combined for YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Thread, Mastodon, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Sounds overwhelming, doesn’t it?
He doesn’t force people, though. He simply lays out the opportunities for you. He gives you a blueprint you can follow if you want to win.
Why am I sharing this romance with you, you ask? Well…
Gary’s advice about content creation has been engraved in my brain since I saw him on stage.
As a writer, it’s easy to feel the urge to publish daily. It’s almost like there’s this little voice constantly nudging me to churn out articles every day. But not so long ago, I found myself almost forgetting the real reason why I embarked on this online writing journey.
The other day, I was on the verge of publishing an article.
The entire process was super fast, too fast. I wrote the article in the morning, gave it a quick edit, and hurriedly sent it off to a publication, all before diving into my 9-to-5 job.
But during my workday, I kept thinking about the article. Something felt off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until later that evening.
After work, I opened Medium and noticed that my article remained untouched by the publication. As I spent another 30 minutes tweaking it here and there, the realization hit me.
It just wasn’t good enough!
I won’t claim to be an online writing expert, but I do know my articles need time to breathe.
I went against my own rule.
Never publish an article on the same day it’s written.
Thankfully, the publication hadn’t gotten around to reviewing my submission, giving me a chance to retract it, saving me and my readers from a piece that wasn’t quite ready to see the light of day.
Looking back, I should’ve known better.
I’ve been creating videos for quite a while now, and this wasn’t the first time I found myself in this situation.
Imagine this: I wrote an excellent script for the video, recorded it, and spent hours editing it. As I was editing, I had that ‘off-feeling.’ I tried to band-aid the video with B-rolls until I had to accept that it wasn’t good enough.
You might think, ‘That’s a whole 8 hours down the drain; why not publish it anyway?’
Here’s the thing.
When we create something so fast, the quality is rarely good.
If you’re anything like me, you probably have a publishing target for yourself, be it once, twice, or even five times a week. More often than not, this number is influenced by the publishing frequency of other creators.
For me, this arbitrary number is 3 articles per week.
But this week?
I won’t be able to hit my target. And, that’s perfectly okay.
Sure, I could have let the article slide through the publication, and they probably would’ve accepted it, given their flexible quality standards. But the story felt half-assed; it lacked something.
I wasn’t proud of it.
It certainly wasn’t my best work. It would’ve been nothing more than a lukewarm attempt to stick to my arbitrary goal of 3 weekly articles.
I realized I allowed this self-imposed target to get in the way of the quality of my work.
While not every piece of content needs to be a masterpiece, and we don’t need to polish an article until it’s perfect, it’s also important to recognize when something is merely average.
In the end, retracting the article was the right move because the quality of it didn’t sit well with me for hours. I felt I needed to do something about it. Cancelling the submission turned out to be the best choice, as it saved me from putting out content that I wasn’t genuinely happy about.
Sometimes, it’s all too tempting to fall into the sunk-cost fallacy, especially when you’ve poured hours into crafting a piece of content. It’s pretty easy to get dragged into and follow the advice of content creator gurus like Gary.
In 2023, when AI tools are on the rise, it’s easy to produce mediocre content, and the internet is practically full of it.
What is hard is knowing when to hold back and when not to publish.
You are your own best critic. You know yourself and your content. You know your style, your standards, and when your content is just not up to par.
I’m not here to encourage anyone to strive for absolute perfection because, let’s be honest, if we keep chasing perfection, we might never share our creations online. Ever.
But we also all have those moments when we know our content is not great.
Sometimes, taking a step back is the real victory.
Not publishing in those moments is a testament to your growth and maturity as a writer and content creator. It’s perfectly okay to hit pause and not post a piece of content if it doesn’t resonate with your standards.
But hey, don’t let this be a gateway to procrastination!
Because the world needs your unique voice. A voice that only you have!