The Ultimate Guide to Planning and Organizing Blog Content

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I don’t typically blog about blogging very much, but I’ve had several requests from readers to share how I plan my blog content.  Y’all know I love a good planning/organizing post, so I wasn’t going to turn that one down! 

Putting it simply, I use two tools to organize my blog content:

1. An Excel spreadsheet with different worksheets by category for all of my ideas

2. An Emily Ley Mini Notebook that holds my actual content calendar for the year 

The Excel Spreadsheet

The spreadsheet is stored on my laptop in my “Blog” folder and it is titled “Post Ideas.”  Simple, right? 

The spreadsheet is divided into 9 worksheets, and each worksheet is for a different category.  The categories are as follows:

Recurring

Yearly

Soon

Projects

Fashion

Recipes

Kids

Organizing

Miscellaneous

Now to elaborate on each of the categories!

Recurring

This worksheet is for the posts that I do every single week and every single month of the year.  For example:

Weekly:

Our Weekend – every Monday

Five on Friday – every Friday

Monthly:

Monthly Goals – first Friday of every month

What I Wore – first Wednesday of every month

What’s Up Wednesday – last Wednesday of every month (although I’ve kind of fallen off the wagon with those lately)

I just like to keep a list of these somewhere because it makes planning my actual content calendar a breeze!  I like to be able to see all of them in a list and not have to actually remember them all off the top of my head.  Lists make everything better!  And easier!  ;o)

Yearly

This worksheet is for the posts that I do once a year every year.  This worksheet is divided into months January – December, and under each month, I have all of the posts listed that I do every year during that month.  For example:

January:

New Year’s Goals – How I Did the Previous Year

New Year’s Goals for the Year Ahead

February:

Valentine’s Day Home Tour

Olivia’s Birthday Interview

Olivia’s Birthday Letter

March:

Lindsay’s Sweet World Anniversary

Easter Home Tour

My Birthday Wish List

April:

My birthday post – “37 Things for Age 37 (I use the appropriate age for that year)

May:

Summer Bucket List

June:

Fourth of July Home Tour 

July:

Jacob’s Birthday Interview

Jacob’s Birthday Letter

August:

Summer Bucket List – What We Accomplished

September:

Fall Bucket List

Fall Home Tour

October:

National Infant Loss Awareness Day

November:

Black Friday Gift Guide

Fall Bucket List – What We Accomplished

Christmas Bucket List

Fall Family Pictures

December:

My Christmas Wish List

Christmas Home Tour

Our Annual Christmas Card

Christmas Bucket List – What We Accomplished (sometimes this posts in January)

An Ode to 2019 (the year in review)

Soon

This worksheet is for ideas that I want to put on the blog soon, but I haven’t yet started on them or worked them into my content calendar.  These are typically posts that I know I could crank out with ease because I’m feeling inspired.  A few examples of ideas on this worksheet are:

The Ultimate Guide to Planning Blog Content (this post – ha!)

Home Office Refresh

Olivia’s Big Girl Bedroom Reveal

Projects

This worksheet is for different project ideas that I have for around our home that would also be good to turn into a blog post… read Pinterest-worthy projects!  A couple of examples that used to be on this worksheet that are now done are as follows:

How to Create an Infant Keepsake Box

DIY Personalized Embroidery Hoop & Fabric Polka Dot Wall

Fashion

This worksheet is for all of my fashion post ideas.  A couple of examples that used to be on this worksheet that are now done are as follows:

How I Wore Something Different Ever Single Day for an Entire Year

How to Take the Perfect OOTD Picture

Recipes

This one is pretty straightforward… this is for all of the recipes that I want to put on the blog.  I do have this worksheet divided into five categories:

Main Dishes

One Dish Meals

Apps & Sides

Desserts
Drinks

A couple of examples that used to be on this worksheet that are now done are as follows:

Blueberry Lemon Drop Cookies

Vodka Strawberry Lemonade

Kids

This worksheet is for all blog posts that are kid related.  A couple of examples that used to be on this worksheet that are now done are as follows:

Jacob’s Birth Story

How We Finally Potty Trained Our Four Year Old When Nothing Else Worked

Organizing

This worksheet is for all blog posts that I want to do about organizing.  A couple of examples that used to be on this worksheet that are now done are as follows:

How I Organized My Entire Life by Creating a Series of Lists + How I Use My Planner to Easily MaintainThem

How to Organize All of Your Child’s School Papers in Just One Box

Miscellaneous

These are for all ideas that don’t fit into any of those other categories.  Things like:

One Year Later – How We’re Doing Financially After I Quit My Corporate Job to be a Stay at Home Mom

A Review of the Ava Bracelet One Year Later – Why I Love It and Think Every Woman Should Have One

So that’s my spreadsheet of ideas.  And let me say that I have oodles and oodles of them.  I think I have enough ideas right now to blog for the next five years.  Haha.  As much as I would love to share a peek at the spreadsheet with you, I'm not ready to share all of my ideas for future posts, so that's why I mostly shared past ideas with you.  :o)

Now for the information on the content calendar itself and how I actual do the planning.

The Content Calendar

For my content calendar, I keep a Mini Notebook in my Emily Ley Simplified Planner and I have it divided into three categories, the last category being my Blog Content Calendar.  Every December, I go to 24calendar.com to get some free blank calendars for the upcoming year.  I copy each calendar for the upcoming year, paste them in a Word Doc, resize them to fit my mini notebook, and then I cut them out and tape them into the notebook with washi tape.  It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not at all… overall I would say it takes about 20 minutes.  The only reason I use this method is because I like to keep my blog content calendar inside my Simplified Planner and I haven’t been able to find any calendars that are the right size that I like.  Plus this is free!  You could easily use a pocket calendar or any other kind of monthly calendar if you wanted.  Just do whatever makes the most sense for you!

So now that you have a spreadsheet brimming with ideas and a blank calendar, it’s time to plan!  I typically sit down at the end of each year to loosely plan the year ahead. 

First, I cross out all days that I know I will not post… for example, certain holidays, Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer when I’m off with the kids, and a few random days throughout the rest of the year (usually a Tuesday or Thursday here and there) just to give myself little breaks. 

Second, I fill in all of the content from the “Recurring” Excel worksheet.  These are the posts that I do every week and every month like my weekend posts, Five on Friday posts, and Monthly Goals posts.

Third, I fill in all of the content from the “Yearly” Excel worksheet.  These are the posts that I do once a year every year during a specific time of the year. 

Fourth, I fill in all of the content from the “Soon” Excel worksheet.  These are the posts that I want to do soon. 

Finally, I try to fill in all of the gaps for the first two months of the year using the ideas from my Excel Spreadsheet.  That way I know exactly how much time I have to plan for each post for the next two months – completing projects, photography for the post, copy writing, editing, etc. – and I can go ahead and incorporate those tasks into my Simplified Planner. 

At that point, planning is done until February when I sit down once more to plan March and April.  And then in April I sit down to plan May and June.  And so on.

Here's a peek at January and February of this year:

Now, I will say this – life happens and THINGS CHANGE!  My content is always, always changing so I only use pencil when writing in my content calendar because plenty of erasing does happen!

Once posts are completed and scheduled in Blogger, I cross the date off in pink highlighter on my content calendar.  That way I can see what’s done at a glance.

Sometimes I work well in advance when I know I have a vacation coming up or summer break.  When working ahead, I just go ahead and write down the idea on the appropriate date and then once I have the post completed and scheduled, I cross off the date in pink highlighter to let me know that’s done.  For example, this July I’m going to recap Jacob’s third birthday since I didn’t blog back then.  I chose a day during his birth month (July) to post that.  It’s already completed and scheduled in Blogger so it is already crossed off on my content calendar.  Done!

So there you go!  Easy peasy!  Having the Excel spreadsheet and the physical content calendar is the perfect combination for me!  How do you plan your content?

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