On planning my Substack calendar
+ free templates to help you plan next year.
As the year gets into its last months, and planning starts for next year, I wanted to share how I started to organise my Substack calendar, and share what is working for me now.
When I started writing on Substack, I just started. I had nothing planned, and I was still figuring out what I wanted to write about. I did my best to allow this ‘disorganisation’ as I slowly found my way.
I knew that a slow pace would allow me to go far, instead of giving into the pressures of wanting to go faster. I wanted the process to be sustainable, to be organic, to be authentic. That requires both time and patience.
When ideas slowly started coming to me, I had to find a way to organise them. To make sense of where and when I should share them. At first, it was list with titles and dates in my journal, which I found a considerable step forward. It was confusing though, especially when it came to more seasonal pieces, collaborations or trying to create space between posts in the series I was writing.
Then, I tried it in monthly calendar version on Google Calendar, but I need more. I needed to be able to look at the year as whole. I also needed something simpler, with less dates. That was when it came to me, I needed something weekly. I often post once a week, I didn’t need to follow dates, and I needed space to write the idea or title and a few key words.
This is when my very simple Substack calendar planner was born. In my journal, I wrote all the week numbers vertically, and I started slowly planning my year with my pencil in hand. The regularity of my series became easier to manage, seasonal letters became easier to plan, and ideas had room to go from a title to a post.
This leads me to the second part of this post.
Free Planner + Ideas Sheet
I have made a few templates based on what I use to plan my Substack calendar. They are simple, but they really work for me. I like to print them, then pencil temporary things in or pen the certain ones in.
I have created three templates. One list view with week numbers, one without, and an idea dumping sheet:
I hope they are as useful to you, as they are to me. Or perhaps inspire you to create what makes sense to you. Either way, I would love to hear how you get on. ☕
Thank you! Much appreciated 🙏🏼
Super idea!