The weekly number

Two to three hours a week, held for months. That is the honest figure, and the interesting part is what happens either side of it.

Below the threshold

Under about two hours a week, output falls below the level at which the platforms can categorise an account. Not enough gets published on a consistent subject for the systems to work out who to show it to.

The result is effort that produces nothing at all rather than proportionally less, which is a genuinely unusual property and the reason the floor exists. One hour a week is not half the outcome; it is close to none of it.

Above the threshold

More hours help, and less than people expect. The constraint after a point is not production but whether the subject is narrow enough and whether the content is worth someone's attention.

Ten hours a week of unfocused output loses to three hours of focused output, reliably. That is not a motivational line - it is what happens when categorisation is the bottleneck rather than volume.

Why weeks beat hours

Twenty hours in one week and two hours a week for ten weeks are not equivalent, and the second wins comfortably. Distribution matters because the systems are watching for consistency and because compounding needs elapsed time rather than accumulated effort.

Anyone planning to "do it properly over a weekend" is planning the version that does not work.

What the two to three hours does not include

Learning the material. That sits on top, front-loaded into the first few weeks, and it is why month one feels heavier than the steady state that follows.

Budget an extra hour or two a week for the first month and expect it to fall away. People who plan for the steady-state figure from day one find week two overwhelming and conclude the whole thing is bigger than it is.

What that means for the launch window

The sessions run across September and the work starts immediately after. Protect the weekly slots before buying rather than after - a purchase made without them is a purchase made on hope.

How the hours change over six months

The making stays roughly constant and the replying grows, because conversations accumulate as reach does. By month four the split has moved noticeably toward correspondence.

That is a good sign rather than a burden, and it is worth expecting - people who budget only for production find the replies eating the slot and conclude they are behind when they are progressing.

The check worth running now

Look at the next eight weeks and find the slots. Not "I could probably" - actual entries in an actual calendar, at times you would defend against other demands.

If they are there, the hours question is settled and everything else about this decision is detail. If they are not, no amount of enthusiasm at the point of purchase creates them.

Fitting it around work · How much to publish · The full workload picture