30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Setting Myself Up for Failure

Two years ago, Daniel over at It's like having my own Card Shop introduced the blogosphere to the Five Minute Post.  The concept was simple.  Try to write a post in five minutes or less.  When I gave it a shot two years ago... I failed miserably.  

Today I'm here to try it again.

Like the first time around... scanning, uploading, and arrangement of images won't be part of the five minutes.  However... research, editing, and revising will be included in the time.  I'm know I'm setting myself up for failure, but the goal is to beat the time I posted two years ago (36 minutes and 57 seconds).

By the way....
none of the above writing or this sentence was included in the final time.  The timed portion of this post begins, now...

Two weeks ago, I mentioned how Collecting Cutch's care package inspired me to purchase some cheap Topps Project 2020 cards off of eBay.  These two cards were the key cards in the lot:

Topps Project 2020 #94 (EFDOT)

EFDOT is a pretty popular artist among Topps Project 2020 fans... and although I wasn't a huge fan of this particular rendition of Gwynn's 1983 Topps rookie card... it has grown on me.

Topps Project 2020 #81 (Blake Jamieson)

As for this McGwire... it was love at first sight.  I can't remember whose blog I saw it on... but I wanted to find an affordable copy ever since.  After adding up all of the cards in the lot and combining shipping each card boiled down to less than $4.25 (shipping & tax included).  Those are prices I can live with.

I'll cut things off here, because I'm already over the five minute mark and it'll take me at least a few minutes to edit, revise, and publish.  Stay tuned to see how I fared.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

Here's a breakdown of how I fared in this challenge:


Research and Writing8 Minutes, 51 Seconds
Editing and Revising7 Minutes, 58 Seconds
Total Time: 16 Minutes, 49 Seconds

It's this kind of exercise that helps me appreciate how much time and effort goes into this blog as well as all of the other hobby blogs out there.

By the way... when you factor in the number of minutes it took me to write the section (at the start of the post) I didn't include in time... I'd estimate it took me around 30 to 35 minutes to write this post from start to finish.  And that's only because I already knew what I wanted to write about.

Either way... I beat my old score.

15 comments:

  1. I do like the look of those two cards as well.
    I have a post coming later tonight that took a couple of hours to put together, and there are only two cards in it!

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  2. Blogging takes time, good blogging even more. Which is probably why my blog isn't that good, I guess. I actually have 2 copies of that McGwire 2020 card. It's a good one!

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  3. I remember trying that as well, and, failing aa well. I've taken days to finish up a post.

    Good Job..

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  4. I'd go for the $4.25 Project 2020 cards too.

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  5. Nice, that is about how long it takes me to write a post....30-40 minutes. The blogosphere definitely appreciates the effort you put in to the posts. Always well written.

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  6. That Tony Gwynn is by far my favorite Gwynn from the Project 2020 cards.

    I totally missed the 5-minute post thing. I never would've been able to do it anyway.

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  7. My haiku series is as simple as it gets, but even at my best I don't think I could whip one up in 5 minutes!

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  8. My Uniform History series takes at a minimum 7 hours per post. That's why I don't do them often.

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  9. It doesn't matter what the post is - it always takes longer than I think it's going to. I don't know if I've ever done one in five minutes or less.

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  10. Hey! You annihilated your previous score. That's great. My posts, I think it's obviously, have minimal effort put into it. I have no one to blame by myself.

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  11. I can appreciate the five-minute post concept, but I could never pull it off. A "quick" post for me probably involves about a half-hour of writing, not even counting all the scanning, cropping, etc.

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  12. I prefer well thought out quality posts rather than this 5 minute stuff.

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  13. gcrl - the hard work payed off, because that post (about the 73t fregosi card) was fantastic.

    the diamond king - i appreciate any card blog. each of us have our own style and that's worth something. i have always been more of a math guy... with reading and writing being two of my least favorite things in school. but i didn't let that stop me from trying out this blogging thing. now i don't know what i'd do with all of the free time if i stopped writing and reading other blogs

    john sharp - sometimes i'll have a post that spans a few days too, but lately i've been trying to do most of my writing for the week on saturdays. although research for my twib posts take a week ;D

    johnnys trading spot - i have it as a saved search, but haven't found any new deals. but i'm a patient man

    sumomenkoman - thanks buddy. not sure if my stuff is well written compared to some of the other talented writers in our blogosphere, but i appreciate your kind words.

    night owl - i didn't like it the first time i saw it, but i have grown to really like it. as for the challenge... your posts are so detailed, informative, and well written... it'd be hard to imagine anyone completing that task within five minutes.

    matt - your haikus are awesome. i've written a few over the years and i doubt any of them fell under 10 or even 20 minutes.

    billy kingsley - billy you put a lot of research into your posts, plus take the time to scan and upload photographs, so the 7 hours thing doesn't surprise me. keep up the great blog!

    npb card guy - you speak the truth. it's never less time than you think. and even when i want to keep things short... it takes at least 30 minutes ;D

    peter k steinberg - we each have our own style... and i don't judge anyone else's write other than my own. and honestly... i don't even do that on a regular basis. although maybe i should.

    nick - you... like night owl and billy are really good about including lots of scans and photos into your posts. that's definitely my downside. although i did spend three hours this afternoon scanning and sorting my 39 card comc order

    sg488 - the good news is you'll rarely see the 5 minute stuff on my blog. the bad news is i'm not sure any of my posts can be described as well thought out quality posts ;D

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  14. I write a lot of my shorter posts in 10 minutes, but I have sketched out in my head before I start typing. Longer posts, anything that needs research or background, and it's going to be 30 minutes give or take.

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  15. I'll never have a post written in five minutes. Guaranteed.

    Generally speaking, from start to finish, I'd say a post takes me around twenty minutes per card.

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