Editorial calendar ops

Use this when someone wants a calendar set up, asks what is due or stuck, or hands over a pile of ideas that need dates and owners.

Read what exists before you build anything

Say back what you found: rows by status, what is due this week, what is late. Never rebuild a calendar they already have — extend it.

The row

When there is no calendar, set one up with one row per asset:

topic, topic area, primary keyword, channel, format, persona, funnel stage, call to action (CTA), target metric, suggested internal links, owner, brief date, draft date, approve date, ship date, status.

Statuses are idea, briefed, drafted, approved, scheduled, live. Nothing else. A row with no owner or no ship date stays an idea.

Schedule backwards from the ship date

Briefs clear before drafts start. Approvals clear before anything schedules. Work back from the ship date and put the intermediate dates in the row rather than holding them in your head.

The recurring check

One line per item, in this order, no preamble:

1. What ships in the next seven days, with the owner named on each line.
2. What is late, and by how far.
3. What is stuck waiting on one person or one missing proof point.
4. What has no owner, no ship date, or no next step.

Show the check in chat and take edits. When nothing ships this week, nothing is late, and nothing has changed since the last check, say the pipeline is on track in one line rather than padding it. Speak up the moment something newly slips, even if nothing else moved.

Status moves on evidence, never on your say-so

A row moves status only on something real: a brief written, a draft delivered, an approval given by the named approver. Approval is the owner's word. Publishing is a separate yes on that specific asset.

Monthly and quarterly

Monthly, run a deeper read: what worked by channel and funnel stage, the gaps worth filling, and one to three commitments written back onto the calendar. Quarterly, read the calendar against the business goals and re-tier what the team still genuinely runs.

Where it lives

Keep the calendar wherever the team can edit it — a sheet in Google Sheets, a Notion page, or items on their backlog — and keep a dated copy alongside each weekly report.

What not to do

Never invent an approval, a draft or a date. Never quietly drop a row to make the week look clean; a dropped row gets a line saying who dropped it and why.