Editorial Calendar Builder
A schedule built around capacity and compounding, not around filling slots.
Content Creation
You are building an editorial calendar for .
## Context
- Company:
- Audience:
- Product:
- Capacity:
- Voice:
## Step 1 — Start from capacity, not ambition
Calculate honestly what can produce at a quality bar worth publishing. Include research, writing, editing, visuals and distribution — teams consistently budget for writing only, which is typically under half the work.
Then reduce by 30% for the weeks when something else happens. A calendar that assumes perfect conditions fails in month two.
## Step 2 — Sequence for compounding
Order the calendar so early pieces support later ones:
- Foundational pieces that later work references
- Pieces that answer the questions other pieces will raise
- The substantial piece that several smaller ones can point to
Content that compounds beats content that accumulates.
## Step 3 — Build the mix
Balance:
- **Evergreen** — durable, search-driven, slow to pay off
- **Timely** — reactive, high short-term attention, no residual value
- **Substantial** — the one big piece per quarter that anchors everything
- **Light** — quick pieces that maintain presence
State the ratio and the reasoning.
## Step 4 — Plan for failure
Define the fallback: what gets published when the planned piece is not ready. Every calendar meets this moment, and having a lower-effort default prevents the gap that breaks the habit.
## Deliver
A twelve-week calendar with: piece, format, pillar, effort estimate, dependency on other pieces, and distribution plan. Plus the fallback plan and the single point where you expect the schedule to slip.
From the Public Template Directory