How to Be Consistent Writing Content as a Developer

Let me be honest with you: I've been a software engineer for over 10 years, and I still suck at posting content consistently.

I've started and abandoned more "content schedules" than I can count. I've watched developers with half my experience build massive followings while I stayed invisible. I've told myself "I'll start posting next week" for literally years.

Sound familiar?

The frustrating part is that I know I should be sharing my work. I've seen what it does for other developers—better job offers, consulting gigs, conference invites, meaningful connections. But every time I sit down to write, my brain goes:

"Who cares what you have to say?"
"Someone already wrote about this better."
"You should be coding, not writing."

After years of struggling with this, I've finally figured out what actually works—at least for me. These aren't theoretical tips from some content guru. These are the strategies that helped me go from posting once every few months to actually building a habit.

1. I Had to Lower My Standards (Like, A Lot)

My biggest problem was perfectionism. I'd spend 3 hours crafting a tweet, decide it wasn't good enough, and delete it. Meanwhile, I'd see other devs posting casual observations that got hundreds of likes.

The breakthrough came when I realized: nobody cares about my content as much as I do. That tweet I agonized over? People scroll past it in 2 seconds. That "mediocre" post I almost deleted? Someone found it genuinely helpful.

Here's how I think about it now: I commit code that isn't perfect all the time. I ship features that could be better. Why do I hold my content to an impossibly higher standard?

"Done is better than perfect. And published is better than saved in drafts."

Now I have a rule: if I've been working on a post for more than 15 minutes, I publish it as-is or delete it. No more 3-hour perfectionism spirals.

2. I Stopped Trying to Create Content

For years, I'd open Twitter thinking "What should I post about?" and immediately draw a blank. Turns out, that's the wrong question entirely.

The shift that changed everything: I stopped creating content and started documenting my work.

Last week alone, I dealt with a weird TypeScript error that took me 2 hours to debug. I discovered a VS Code extension that's now essential to my workflow. I made an architectural decision on a project that I'll probably regret later. I had a frustrating call with a stakeholder about scope creep.

Each of those is a post. I just wasn't paying attention.

Now I keep a running note called "Content Triggers" open while I code. Whenever something makes me think "huh, interesting" or "that was annoying" or "I wish I'd known that"—I jot it down. That's my content backlog, generated automatically from my actual work.

3. I Batch Everything on Sundays

I used to try to write posts in the gaps between coding sessions. Terrible idea. Context switching killed me every time. I'd be deep in a debugging session, think "I should post something," lose my flow, write nothing useful, and then struggle to get back into the code.

Now I batch all my content work into one session: Sunday evenings, 30-45 minutes. I review my "Content Triggers" note, pick the most interesting items, and draft 4-5 posts. They're rough. They're not perfect. But they're done.

Then throughout the week, I spend maybe 2 minutes per day polishing and posting one of those drafts. The writing is already done—I'm just editing and hitting publish.

This single change probably 10x'd my output. One focused session beats five interrupted attempts.

4. I Stole Templates From Better Writers

I'm not a naturally good writer. But you know what I am good at? Using frameworks and patterns. So I applied the same thinking to content.

I collected templates from posts that performed well—both mine and others. Now when I sit down to write, I'm not staring at a blank page. I'm filling in a template.

My most-used templates:

The TIL:
"TIL: [Surprising thing I learned]. Here's why it matters: [1-2 sentences]. The gotcha I hit: [What tripped me up]."

The Before/After:
"I used to [old way]. Now I [new way]. The difference: [specific improvement]."

The Mistake Confession:
"I just spent [time] debugging [problem]. The cause? [Embarrassing reason]. Save yourself the pain: [Lesson]."

The Hot Take:
"Unpopular opinion: [Contrarian view]. Here's why: [Your reasoning]. Change my mind?"

Templates feel like cheating. They're not. Every great writer uses structures. I'm just being explicit about it.

5. I Embraced the Messy Parts

I used to only want to share wins. Shipped a feature? Post it. Got promoted? Humble brag. But that meant I only had content when things went well—which, let's be honest, isn't every week.

The posts that actually resonate? The messy ones. The bug that took me 4 hours because I forgot a semicolon. The project that's behind schedule. The technology I hyped that I'm now questioning. The imposter syndrome that hits every time I start a new codebase.

Real talk: my most-engaged post ever was about a stupid mistake I made that cost my team a day of debugging. People loved it because they'd made the same mistake. Vulnerability beats polish.

6. I Set a Cadence I Could Actually Maintain

Every time I tried to "post daily," I'd burn out within two weeks. I'd miss one day, feel guilty, miss another, and then quit entirely. Classic all-or-nothing thinking.

Now my goal is absurdly modest: 2 posts per week. That's it. Some weeks I do more. Most weeks I hit exactly 2. The point is it's sustainable.

2 posts per week for a year = 104 posts. That compounds. After a year of consistent (not prolific, just consistent) posting, you'll have built something real.

Pick a cadence that feels almost too easy. You can always increase it later. But you can't build a habit if you keep burning out.

7. I Finally Automated the Annoying Parts

Here's the thing: as developers, we automate everything. Deployments, testing, formatting, linting—if it's repetitive, we script it. But for some reason, I was manually grinding out content from scratch every time.

The final piece of the puzzle was building tools to help myself. My GitHub already has a record of everything I've worked on. My commits tell a story of problems solved, features shipped, and lessons learned. Why was I ignoring all that context?

That's actually why I started building StoryTell. I wanted a tool that would look at my GitHub activity and suggest content based on what I'd actually done. Not generic templates—specific posts about specific work.

Now, instead of staring at a blank page wondering what to write, I review AI-generated suggestions based on my recent commits and pick the ones that resonate. I still add my voice and edit them, but the hardest part—coming up with ideas—is handled.

The Truth About Consistency

I'm not going to pretend I've got this completely figured out. I still skip weeks sometimes. I still publish posts that flop. I still feel like an imposter sharing my thoughts alongside developers way more experienced than me.

But I'm posting more than I ever have. And slowly, it's compounding. More followers. More conversations. More opportunities that wouldn't have found me if I'd stayed invisible.

If you're struggling with consistency like I was, here's my honest advice: make it as easy as possible. Lower your standards. Document instead of create. Batch your work. Use templates. Embrace the mess. Pick a sustainable cadence. Automate what you can.

And most importantly: just start. Your first posts will probably suck. Mine did. But you can't get better at something you're not doing.

TL;DR - What Actually Worked For Me

Lower your standards — Perfectionism kills consistency. Ship rough posts.
Document, don't create — Your daily work is your content. Just pay attention.
Batch on Sundays — One focused session beats daily context switching.
Steal templates — Frameworks work for content too. Use them.
Share the messy parts — Vulnerability resonates more than polish.
2 posts per week — Sustainable beats ambitious. Every time.
Automate with tools — Let your GitHub feed your content ideas.

If you want to try the approach that's working for me, check out StoryTell. I built it because I needed it myself.