A Perfect Editorial Calendar for Your Desk
I have mentioned editorial calendars a couple of times here but I have always been thinking of something electronic. As it turns out there is a company who has developed a physical planner almost designed for the job!
What you need in an editorial calendar is days laid out calendar style with space to write brief notes. What this planner from AGlobalWorld adds to the mix is international holidays.
Intended for travelers, these holiday details let you know when there is a national holiday happening so you can plan around it. Extremely useful I am sure you will agree if you have ever been stranded in a strange place wondering why all the restaurants are shut. For bloggers this is useful to know when traffic is likely to be light and what the devil a “boxing day” is.
These planners can be customized with your own company logo and details for giveaways and merchandising. The one I have has a simple black and gold cover which doesn’t look exactly “designer”. It is scratched already so combined with the lack of attractive design you couldn’t say it looks posh enough to leave lying around, but it’s the practical details that matter rather than appearances. That said, these contents in a moleskine kind of package would be nice.
As you might be able to see from the pic above, in some places the space to write is quite cramped, so I am going to have to work out a set of abbreviations or index system. I am going to see how I get on with this planner but if you find anything else that would do the job even better, do let me know!
By Chris Garrett. Posted in Productivity
it’s always handy to know when the next full moon is coming around as a blogger…. that’s when the trolls come out.
Chris,
I find between, Mindmaps, my PDA, and Outlook I can do all my planning.
And yet between them, I still never seem to have enough time to do everything I want.
Regards.
Abbreviations might work at the beginning, but when there will be a lot of them – you can simply get lost. You will need another notebook for abbreviations =) The most important thing, I think, is to fill editorial calendar. I have one at my desk, and I simply do not have time to write there =). Lack of time-management.
Hmm, that’s a neat little organizer. But, I think I’ll stick to using electronic organizers. I find that I never use paper organizers. Occasionally, I’ll receive one as a Christmas gift and, at the start of the New Year, I’ll use it faithfully for a week or two, and then it will get tossed in a drawer again, not to be seen until months (sometimes years) later.
I have used Franklin Covey planning products in the past and found them to be very comprehensive. (Yes, the Covey is of Stephen Covey and The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.) They have been around for ages and they have a lot of different choices in their paper and electronic planning systems. Now I just use Outlook and that not even as often as I should. Maybe I should add ‘effectively use a planner’ to the list of New Year’s Resolutions that I am going to break.
Nice… these calendars are handy. I’m love my little tech gadgets, but I find it hard to get used to planning/organizing on a pda… So these are great.
@Darren – Good point!
@jsanderz – Yes, that can be a challenge, we put so much time into being organized we might not have time to work
@Max – Hopefully the attempt to get organized with pay dividends if I stick at it or not
@Adam – I was the same, I had a PSION, a palm, a Jornada, etc etc .. all collecting dust
@Brandi – Oh, I didn’t know you could get those
It’s like a gym membership really, it takes more than just signing up 
@jason – I am hoping its presence on my desk will work as a reminder … hoping
Actually, I’d prefer an organizer that doesn’t have holidays printed on the day-boxes. Those additional information takes up a lot of space
Furthermore, NOT every holiday is relevant to us, right? And you don’t have to be reminded that Jan 1st is New Year’s Day, do you?
Google Calendar offers International Holidays and there are other promo type calendar that can be imported.
But for ease of use you can hardly beat Pen and Paper.