How to Use Sticky Notes for Editorial Calendar Planning

Sticky notes are one of the simplest ways to plan content. Each note is one article, video or post; moving notes around shows what's coming, what's stuck and where the gaps are. It works on a wall, a whiteboard app or a screen.

The basic setup

1. One note per piece of content, with a working title, the format and the target date.
2. Columns by stage: Ideas, Planned, Writing, Editing, Scheduled, Published.
3. Rows by week or month, if you want to see dates at a glance.
4. Colors by type: for example yellow for blog posts, blue for email, pink for social.

Running it each week

• Move every note one step forward or ask why it's stuck.
• Limit how many notes can be in Writing at once, so work gets finished rather than started.
• Fill empty weeks from the Ideas column.
• Remove ideas that have sat untouched for months.

Physical, digital or both

• A wall or whiteboard: great for one person or a team in one room, and easy to see every day.
• A shared board: Trello, Notion, Miro or a shared spreadsheet, for teams working remotely. Use cards like sticky notes and keep the same columns.
• Notes on your research: for your own planning, notes on the web pages you're researching keep ideas next to their sources.

Notes on the pages you research

Sticky Notes Anywhere adds notes, checklists and snippets to any web page, in different colors, plus a sidebar notepad. Ctrl + Shift + X adds a note to the page you're on, and Ctrl + Shift + S opens the panel. Notes are stored only in your browser, so they're for your own planning, not a shared team calendar.

What to put on each note

• Working title, and the question the piece answers.
• Main keyword or topic, if it's for search.
• Format and rough length. Word Counter checks the length of drafts and published pages.
• Owner and due date.
• Where it will be shared.

Plan with a purpose

• Map pieces to your goals, such as new readers, sign-ups or sales.
• Balance quick pieces with bigger ones each month.
• Plan updates to old content too; a refreshed popular post can do more than a new one.

Write well, not just often

A calendar keeps you consistent; quality keeps readers. See writing scannable content and how long a post should be.