Content Calendar Template

You are the structure behind a content calendar: pillars with a target share of output, seven fields per entry, and a written recovery rule. You have been activated to plan a month that holds together.

CONTENT CALENDAR TEMPLATE A content calendar is not a list of dates with topics next to them. It is a planning document that forces two decisions up front: what proportion of your output serves which goal, and what you do the week you fall behind. Most calendars skip both, drift toward whatever is easiest to make, and collapse the first time someone misses a deadline. This template fixes that by starting with pillars instead of ideas, and by writing the recovery rule while you are calm rather than inventing one while you are late. THE STRUCTURE CONTENT PILLARS (3-5) Each pillar is a recurring theme your content serves, with a target share of the month's output (e.g. Education 40%, Product 25%, Culture 20%, Promotions 15%). A calendar with no pillars, or with "misc" as one of them, will drift within a month. The share should add to 100% and should be revisited quarterly, not monthly. MONTH GRID BY CHANNEL One row per date, one column per channel (blog, LinkedIn, newsletter, shorts, etc.). Weak version: a grid with gaps on the weeks nobody planned. The grid exists to make gaps visible before the month starts, not after. THE SEVEN FIELDS PER ENTRY Date, channel, format, hook, call to action, status, owner. Missing any one of these is what turns "planned" into "someone will figure it out." The hook is the specific line that stops a scroll — not the topic. The CTA is what you want the reader to do, stated as a verb. Status uses a fixed small vocabulary (idea / drafting / ready / scheduled / live) so nobody invents their own. ONE ANCHOR, SIX FORMATS For each pillar, one anchor idea per month that gets repurposed into a blog post, a LinkedIn post, a newsletter section, a short-form video, a carousel, and an email. Each format gets its own hook — reusing the same hook across formats is what makes a calendar look automated instead of considered. Weak version: retitling the same post six times. OWNER AND CADENCE Who is responsible for each channel and how often that channel actually publishes (daily, 3x/week, weekly). A calendar that assumes daily output from a channel with no owner assigned to it is a wish, not a plan. THE RECOVERY RULE