One of the arguments against blogging is the lack of time. I know this feeling all too well as I try to produce quality content. A tool that I’ve found helpful is an editorial calendar.

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar allows you to organize your blog posts in advance, allowing you to get a big picture of your blog and where you are going. It can be as simple as a paper calendar where you keep track of upcoming posts or it can be online and tied into your blogging software. I’m going to show you one way to get started.

Why?

By using an editorial calendar you’ll be more consistent with your blogging and less stressed.

Getting started

Start by brainstorming article titles or topics. Don’t worry about the content of the article, just the title. Write down 7-10 article ideas. I use a text document in Dropbox, and continually add ideas as they come to me from my phone. By always having ideas, I can always find something I want to write about. That’s an important point, be sure the article ideas and titles are something that is relevant to you. No one wants to read an article written by someone that barely knows what they are talking about (readers of this blog excluded).

Fill in the calendar

Using your favorite calendar app, paper calendar, or a editorial calendar template, enter your article ideas into the calendar. Try to be consistent, maybe you want to publish every other week? Select a day of the week and stick to that day. Do you want to write once or twice a week? Be consistent and publish on the same day each week.

All done?

Once the calendar has a few weeks of articles entered, you can now sit back and relax. Wait, no you can’t! Now is the fun part, writing the content. Articles written in advance can be scheduled by your blogging software. You’ll always have ideas as long as you keep your calendar up to date.