How Editorial Calendars Help You Meet Your Writing Goals

Achievable goals are usually broken down into component parts. All sorts of goals are paired with special systems that make it easier for those pursuing them to approach their end states through a series of manageable baby steps.

Editorial Calendars – A Tool for Writers and Editors

The system used by most writers to achieve long-term and large-scale publishing goals is the editorial calendar. There are all sorts of editorial calendars- those for magazine editors, television producers, marketers, etc…. Regardless of their specific use, most editorial calendars share some common elements:

• They break the year down into months, weeks, and days
• They take advantage of seasonal themes
• They enable one to focus on seasonal goals within the context of larger objectives

By creating an editorial calendar of your own, you may find it easier to achieve your online writing goals for the coming year- whatever they may be.

Creating an Editorial Calendar

The process of creating an editorial calendar is pretty straightforward:

1. Brainstorm and outline what you want from the year. It is fine to lay out several different goals; editorial calendars are particularly useful in making it easy for you to fit and weave them together.
2. Create the editorial calendar by deciding what, when, and where you will publish different articles, videos, social media posts, and other pieces of content that are related to your goals.
3. Write, edit, and publish your work according to the calendar’s schedule.

Important Considerations

As you create your editorial calendar, you will benefit from:

• Considering how you can make the most of different seasons. Consider cashing in on holiday subjects or seasonal events by making sure that you start publishing Hubs on the event around one and a half months before it occurs.
• Being flexible. One can hardly anticipate everything that will happen in the coming twelve months. Be sure to make your calendar flexible. For example, do not make all of the content you write in September dependent on the content you write in August- something might come up in that month that drives you to focus on something else for a spell, and it would be bad if one small deviation from your calendar completely derails your goal achievement process.
• Being reasonable. We often overestimate how much we will be able to achieve in any given time frame. Keep your expectations somewhat low in the beginning. If you find that you are capable of publishing high quality Hubs than you initially expected, you can always adjust your objectives accordingly.

As you do not need any special software to create an editorial calendar (all you really need is a physical calendar or a spreadsheet), you can get started right away. I hope you find it to be a helpful tool!

[Image by Nemo, Public Domain, via pixabay]