Well, in the past I would normally clean the area, then fill the hole with spackle. Then I had to wait for it to dry. And then I had to sand. Repeat. Then I had to spot prime the area to prevent paint flashing and wait for the primer to dry. After all of that, I would FINALLY be able to coat the repaired area with the wall paint. And my patch jobs never looked totally perfect. These patches make fixing holes in my walls faster, easier, mess-free AND they look better than my spackle repairs ever did.