Idea - Write - Edit is a three-step process to publish a piece of content: lock the outline first, write in one go from the outline, then edit by cutting. Each step ends at a stopping point, and the next step starts only once you hold what the step before made. The end point of the process is a post on your website, where readers understand you and like you.
This page is for people who make their own content and want to get better at it themselves, most of all people who run a business alone. If you only want a tool that turns out a hundred posts at one click, this process is not built for that. To start right away, go straight to Outline a post from a one-line topic.
The three steps of Idea - Write - Edit
In each step you wear a different hat and make a different thing.
| Step | Your role | What you do | What you hold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idea | Screenwriter | Pour out every idea, pick ideas by your core message, lock the outline | A locked outline |
| Write | Actor | Say or write everything you understand about each idea | A rough draft, the longest version of the post |
| Edit | Editor | Tighten the opening, cut the draft, put it in your customer’s words | A finished post, ready to publish |
The Idea step takes the most time, the Write step is done with the internet off, and the Edit step only cuts. Each step has its own page: The Idea step explains why the idea comes first and why the steps go in order, The Write step covers writing procrastination and talk to write, and The Edit step explains why the last step only cuts.
The stopping point of each Idea - Write - Edit step
A stopping point is the moment a step is done and what it made is put away. A process with stopping points keeps your post safe through interruptions and short pieces of free time.
| Step | Stopping point |
|---|---|
| Idea | You read the outline again and see the script is good enough and flows |
| Write | You go through every idea in one go. An idea where you get stuck is one you do not understand well enough yet |
| Edit | You and your customer both understand it, and the post is tight and goes straight to the point |
A stopping point is a rest stop
Cuong calls a stopping point a rest stop: after each one, it feels like you just reached one peak and are about to climb the next. Thanks to stopping points, you always know where you are and what comes next.
Without a process, you write in one go by feel just to get the post done, and what is left is exhaustion, like a battery running down.
An interruption does not cost you the post
A phone call in the middle only leaves one step half done. It does not make you lose the direction of the whole post. Without a process, one interruption makes you lose your fire and quit easily.
You also do not need to wait for the mood. Once you have an outline, you follow it and write. When you are in the flow of writing, happy or sad no longer matters, and the Edit step only edits what you have written.
In scattered free time, you see where you get stuck
Five hours a week never come in one block. They are torn into pieces of 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, and without a process it all falls apart.
Finish one step in each piece, then close it. How to plan your week is in Publish posts steadily in short free slots.
With a process, you see at once where you get stuck: if the outline takes four or five days while writing and editing stay fast, the step to practice is the Idea step.
Idea - Write - Edit in the content system
Idea - Write - Edit is the doing part of the content system. The Know - Trust - Love content funnel tells you which posts to write and in what order. Idea - Write - Edit takes each post in the funnel out into the world. Without this doing part, the funnel plan and your ideas stay forever in a notes app like Notion or Obsidian, where nobody can read them.
Every type of post in the funnel, Know, Trust or Love, goes through the same three steps. Only the shape of the outline and the opening change with the type. Writing and editing stay the same.
It relies on you, and AI only helps
All three steps rely almost entirely on you. AI groups, pulls apart, turns speech into text and tightens what you have put out, but all the data is yours.
The deciding parts need a person: choosing ideas for an outline other people want to read, because only people know what people like, and putting yourself in the reader’s place to write the opening. What to hand to AI in each step is in What AI does in each Idea - Write - Edit step.
Getting faster by repeating
The way to get faster is to repeat the three steps until they become a habit, not to buy more tools. Each time you research for the Idea step, you learn once. Each time you say it out loud in the Write step, you learn a second time, so the two hours for a post do more than make the post.
Other people have AI too, sometimes more tools than you, so a race of tools is one you cannot win. The skill you build is a publishing skill, and you can use it for every kind of content: posts, YouTube videos, TikTok.
An example of Cuong before and after Idea - Write - Edit
Cuong is an introvert. Cuong drew Idea - Write - Edit from his own stumbles, then sharpened it after training the students of the Write to Sell course and seeing where people got stuck.
| Before the process | With Idea - Write - Edit | |
|---|---|---|
| How the post was made | Write as soon as there was an idea, then tear it down and rewrite it many times out of perfectionism | Lock the outline, write in one go, then only cut |
| Speed | Twice as slow as others, even if the post might be better | Faster with each round of repeating the process |
| Times a post is worked on | Many | Usually once. A later version only updates what has changed |
The result shows in speed and certainty, not in the words. Cuong does not write fine prose. The goal of a post is for customers to understand it, not for them to praise the writing.
What Idea - Write - Edit does not do
- It does not promise sales. The process only carries out your content plan. Sales come from a product that stands apart and from the strategy of the funnel. The two are told apart in The content system.
- It does not write posts for you. AI only helps with data you give it. You are the last reviewer and you answer for the post.
- It does not make every post look the same. The process sets the order of work, not what a post looks like.
- It does not ask you to write fine prose. Fancy words, figures of speech and slang make a post harder for readers, AI and Google to understand.
Read next
The Idea step
The Idea step goes from a one-line topic to a locked outline, the script of the post, so ideas come first and decide most of its success.
The Write step
The Write step pours all you know about each idea into a rough draft, and talking to write from guiding questions ends both dread and blanks.
The Edit step
The Edit step tightens the opening, cuts the rough draft and puts it in your customer's words, until you and your customer both understand it.