Walking My Talk With An Editorial Calendar!

Hello, Hello!

Have you been blogging? I hate to admit it, but I've been bad about it.

But. this morning, there was a great article on LInkedin that included 3 great reasons to blog!  Not only were they great reasons, they were also inspiring reasons that  hit me front and center with questions!  Why haven't I been blogging?   I enjoy it when I do blog.  What is my problem?

Creating editorial calendars is how I coach clients who are in this type of situation.. Am a bit embarrassed to say that  I never thought "I personally" needed an editorial calendar, as creating online content is what I do and my mind is trained, right?   But, given when I did my last blog posting, the time  appears to be right for me to walk my talk with with an editorial calendar for myself! 

What is an editorial calendar you ask?  It is sitting down, planning and putting into writing on a calendar,  what you want to say in the next week, when you'll say it,  how you'll say it, to who and WHY!   There are fancy templates online that you can use.  They are probably best served if you are coordinating several people doing messaging for you.  However, if you are doing it all yourself, the basics are all you need.

So, today I am walked my own talk by creating my own  editorial calendar.  I am not using any of the fancy templates, Am just keeping it very simple!  I first listed all the ways I wanted to have online visibility via written messaging this week - for example, blog posts (of course), my weekly mailing, daily postings, etc. Then I assigned  a topic, a purpose and a day of the week for each message type!

One benefit immediately appeared.  After being sure I had made a finalized list of desired ways to be visible, I printed it up and THEN realized that I had forgotten one major way I wanted to be visible!  The benefits of writing everything down were immediately showing up for me! No wonder I don't get everything done when I keep it just in my head!

The entire process took me about 45 minutes.

As the day continued a second immediate benefit showed up for me  I felt like I had more time!  How often does that happen? Having all my online creative and marketing messaging already defined, written down in detail and assigned per day, for the week, appeared to have freed me up more than I ever thought I wasn't previously free ( if that makes sense to you?)   It was amazing to feel the calm, and to have a clear mind for other things that needed to be done.  I realized that prior to creating my first editorial calendar I had been keeping a percentage of my mind and energy busy with an ongoing undefined "thinking" .about my messaging... it was always on my mind as again, that is what I do!  Writing it down hasn't stopped the creativity it has just contained that part of it freeing me up for using it 100% in other aspects of my business.  Simply amazing the difference!!!

Now ... I realize this is only the first day.  So my next blog posting is on the calendar for this Thursday after my Garden Club call.  It's topic is to share with you how this week continues as I use my editorial calendar!  Should be a great post!

If you want more detail on how I created my calendar, join my mailing list by clicking here.  I will detail it in my weekly mailing going out tomorrow!!!  And check in this Thursday evening to see how this week goes!!

In the mean time ...

Keep Your Business Garden Growing,
margie