• Start Here
  • Work With Me
  • Parenting
  • Kids Activities
  • Working Moms
  • Productivity Tips
  • Number of items in cart: 0

    • Your cart is empty.
    • Total: $0.00
    • Checkout

Fab Working Mom Life

A Working Mom Blog: Let's thrive as working moms.

  • Blog
  • Motherhood
    • Breastfeeding
    • Parenting
    • Pregnancy
    • Kids Activities
    • Working Mom
  • Lifestyle
    • Finances
    • Food
    • Health
    • Home Life
    • Military
    • Organize
  • Resources
    • Blogging Resources
    • Working Mom Life Resources
  • About
    • About Julie
    • Disclosure Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Subscribe
  • Work With Me
    • Advertise Here or Hire Me
    • Guest Post Here
    • Link and Image Policy
    • As Seen On
  • Freebies
    • Affirmations for Working Moms
    • Monthly Budget
    • Nanny Interview Questions Checklist
    • Start a Blog? email course
    • Printables
  • Shop
    • Budget Workbook Planner
    • 12 Month Habit Tracker Printable
    • Christmas Games and Planning Printables
    • Nanny Contract Template
    • Baby’s First Year Journal
    • Mind Dump Planner Journal
    • Self-Love Planner for Moms Printable
    • First day of school chalkboard printables
    • My Zazzle Store
    • My Amazon Store
    • Etsy Store

Note: posts contain affiliate links, earning me a commission. By using this site, you agree to our use of browser cookies. Read our disclosure and privacy policies for more details.

How to use Google Drive as an Editorial Calendar

June 8, 2015 by Julie 20 Comments

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe and join fellow working moms. Thanks for visiting!

WordPress has a great plugin that shows your draft and scheduled posts on a calendar, and you can drag and drop as needed to move things around. This editorial calendar is incredibly useful. However, what about your list of ideas?

How do you create an editorial calendar? 

I keep reading that creating a draft post for each idea you have isn’t the best practice. Well, I probably have 10-15 idea drafts just floating around my WordPress – and they’re not even legit drafts, just subject lines, and a blank post.

I decided to instead try to organize and plan my ideas elsewhere, instead of creating a draft post for any idea I had. The problem is, I still wanted to be able to see a calendar view of my scheduled posts with these draft ideas to plan out when to write them.

Since I like to be able to view and edit my plans anywhere (from home, on my phone, on work breaks), and I love spreadsheets (I’m an engineer, after all), I wanted to use Google Drive for this purpose. I recently found out a way to do this! Did you know you can find add-ons for your Google Sheets? Click reading for tips on how to create an editorial calendar template in google sheets!

how-to-use-google-drive-as-an-editorial-calendar-for-your-blog

How to Use Google Drive Sheets as an Editorial Calendar with an Add-on

On the menu bar, between “tools” and “help” is a lovely option called “Add-ons”. Click that and search for “template” like I show in the screenshot below, and look for “Vertex 42 Template Gallery”. It is free, so you would just click the “+FREE” and accept the terms. Of course, you can try out any of the other templates, that’s just the one I ended up adding on and using.


Google_Drive_Calendar_1

 

Once the add-on is installed, you use it by going to “Add-ons”, hovering over the “Template Gallery” arrow on the right and selecting “Browse Templates”.

Recommended Post:  Learning To Write for Preschoolers: 6 brilliant tips to make it more appealing

Google_Drive_Calendar_2

Then you select the Monthly Calendar option. I picked landscape, but there is also a portrait option.

Google_Drive_Calendar_3This creates a new Sheet with tabs for each month. You select the year and it populates the dates. Now all you need to do is write in the titles of your planned posts and draft ideas to help organize your editorial calendar. This works like a spreadsheet you would have on your computer, except with the added bonus of being able to access it on any browser or the Google Drive app.

You can see a sample of my Editorial Calendar on Google Sheets below. I filled in some of my May 2015 posts. It gives me the option of knowing at a glance what days I’m posting and what days are available while also letting me establish some sort of posting schedule pattern with any post ideas I have floating around in my head.

Google_Drive_Calendar_4

What tools do you use to plan your posts? Have you used Google Sheets and add-ons before for this purpose?

How to use Google Drive as an Editorial Calendar #bloggingtips #blogging #productivity

 

Join the Working Mom List

Join the Working Mom collective and get support and tools to help you thrive! Subscribers get access to my library of resources and printables.

Thank you for joining the tribe! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit

Categories: Organize, Tips and Resources, TopPosts, Website and Blogging Tags: Blogging tips

the PAST
the FUTURE

Join the Working Mom List

Join the Working Mom collective and get support and tools to help you thrive! Subscribers get access to my library of resources and printables.

Thank you for joining the tribe! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit

Comments

  1. Tina Ernspiker says

    December 1, 2016 at 8:59 am

    Hey, Julie, your site looks great. Love the header 🙂 We are syndicating this post on the IBA website. I am working on it now. Keep an eye out for it very soon! Buenas Dias! Tina

    Reply
    • Julie says

      December 1, 2016 at 9:16 am

      Ooh how exciting! Thanks!

      Reply
  2. Stacey Loring says

    July 22, 2016 at 10:12 pm

    Julie, you’re a genius. I’ve been using Google Calender, along with my paper planner but I hate Google Calender. Since I’m no longer with WordPress, I do miss the
    If editorial Calender. I’m going to try this and see how it goes.

    Reply
    • Julie says

      July 22, 2016 at 10:29 pm

      yay! I love using my Google Drive editorial calendar. I did find an even easier way to create a calendar but I don’t remember how I did that. I created my current editorial calendar without using the add-on I talked about in this post. So play around with it and see what other fun stuff you can come up with.

      Reply
  3. Cassie says

    July 3, 2015 at 8:56 am

    I had no clue that Google had this! I knew there were add-ons but I didn’t realize there was one for a calendar! I currently use Trello just to jot down my ideas, I can’t seem to get too far ahead to have posts scheduled in advance, but that is my goal one day. Thanks for sharing this I will have to try it out when I get the chance!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      July 13, 2015 at 2:26 pm

      I had no idea too until I thought to search for it. I bet there are tons of awesome add-ons we can explore. Trello sounds like a really good option too, I’ve heard great things about it.

      Reply
  4. Betsy @ BPhotoArt.com says

    June 30, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    Wow that is neat! I hadn’t considered using Google drive as an editorial calendar before. What a good idea! I am now thinking of all kinds of ways to use this calendar. Thank you!

    Thanks for sharing at #SmallVictoriesSundayLinkup …I’ve pinned your post… hope you join us again this week!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      July 13, 2015 at 2:20 pm

      Awesome, glad to have provided useful info that you can run with 🙂

      Reply
  5. Lyssa says

    June 27, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    Thank you for this!! (And thank you for sharing on Blogelina… it’s how I found this post!) I’ve been trying to figure out a way to create my own spreadsheet for ages because I could never find one I liked and that worked for me. You give such detailed instructions on how to get the Add-On and exactly how it works for you. Such a wonderfully helpful post! Thanks!!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      June 30, 2015 at 9:40 am

      Ooh glad to hear this helped you out 🙂 There are still things about this set up that I’m not 100% happy with (like the add-on always opens to January calendar, rather than the month we’re currently in, and I haven’t figured out if there’s a way to fix that) but it is far better than writing it by hand or manually making a calendar spreadsheet.

      Reply
  6. Laura says

    June 20, 2015 at 4:50 am

    Such a good piece of advice, thank you. I will start using this as I need to be a bit better organised and have my blogging ideas on a calendar rather than just in my iPhone notes. Laura

    Reply
    • Julie says

      June 20, 2015 at 12:36 pm

      Hope it works well for you 🙂 I’m sure there are better options out there, but this one is free and simple 😉

      Reply
  7. Jackie says

    June 14, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    Yasss! I have been wanting and easy-to-edit editorial calendar for months now, but I’m struggled to find one! I use the free wordpress, so I don’t have the opportunity to use the plug-in, which makes this Google Drive option so appealing to me. I never knew this existed until now. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      June 30, 2015 at 9:43 am

      YAY glad another person found this idea helpful. When I was on free wordpress with the book blog my co-blogger and I had the hardest time keeping track of when we were planning on posting certain things, and both kept separate hand-written calendars. So much work hah. Electronic is way better.

      Reply
  8. Heather says

    June 14, 2015 at 8:53 am

    I didn’t realize that wordpress had that calendar plugin. I wanted something like that but didn’t think to look for it. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Julie says

      June 30, 2015 at 9:41 am

      The WP Editorial Calendar plugin is quite helpful too 🙂

      Reply
  9. Mrs Tubbs says

    June 9, 2015 at 3:54 pm

    I have a notebook! I’ll have to see if there is something similar in blogger

    Reply
    • Julie says

      June 9, 2015 at 7:37 pm

      Since it is just like an excel spreadsheet, it is completely outside your blogging platform and you can use it for planning posts in Blogger too 🙂

      Reply

Comments are held for moderation. Links are no follow.

Trackbacks

  1. Need An Editorial Calendar? Use Google Drive Sheets! says:
    December 9, 2016 at 1:32 am

    […] An Editorial Calendar? Use Google Drive! originally appeared on Fab Working Mom Life by our very own Julie Smeltzer. Thanks for being an IBAblogger and sharing with us […]

    Reply
  2. Weekly Recap| Jun 7-13, 2015 | Oh, the Books! says:
    August 19, 2015 at 8:05 pm

    […] Julie shows us how to use Google Drive as an editorial calendar. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Comments are held for moderation.

About Julie

Julie of Fab Working Mom Life Welcome! My name is Julie :) I am a Texan living in Hawaii (military life). I'm a mom, a blogger, and also work full-time in environmental compliance. I write about being a working mom to help myself and other working moms in our journey to find a balance between our family, responsibilities, and hobbies. I do this because we moms need a support network to thrive both at home and at work.

Follow us

  • mail
  • instagram
  • instagram
  • tiktok
  • twitter
  • pinterest
  • facebook
  • linkedin
  • youtube
  • bloglovin

Note: posts contain affiliate links, earning me a small commission at no additional charge to you. This site uses browser cookies to store information on your computer: some are essential to make this site work, others improve your user experience, and track behavior and user patterns (for advertising purposes). By using this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Read our disclosure and privacy policies for more details.

Join fellow Working Moms

Grab these Affirmations for Working Moms when you Join!

Join the Working Mom List

Join the Working Mom collective and get support and tools to help you thrive! Subscribers get access to my library of resources and printables.

Thank you for joining the tribe! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit

Most Popular

full time working mom life hacks

How to streamline busy life as a working mom with these time-saving tips

When Your Hyper Child Just Doesn’t Listen, Try This

3 ways to get picky eaters to try new foods tall

How to get stubborn picky eaters & toddlers to try new foods in 3 fun ways

Featured Posts

  • Say No Like a Pro: Why Learning to say No is a powerful tool for moms
  • Get Ready for Back To School with these Tips (40+ Mom Hacks to Prepare for Back to School)
  • Lost in Public? What to do if you get Separated & Your Child Gets Lost
  • Social Media Detox: 15 signs you need a social media break right away!
  • ABCMouse Review: No-guilt Screen Time
Christmas gifts guide

Join the Working Mom List

Join the Working Mom collective and get support and tools to help you thrive! Subscribers get access to my library of resources and printables.

Thank you for joining the tribe! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit

Fab Working Mom Life Hot Topics

productivity tips for working moms
5-things-you-need-to-know-to-breastfeed-baby-sliderthings-to-do-to-prepare-for-baby-for-first-time-moms-slider

Link to Fab Working Mom Life

Membership


Memberships page.

Join the Working Mom List

Join the Working Mom collective and get support and tools to help you thrive! Subscribers get access to my library of resources and printables.

Thank you for joining the tribe! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

Powered by ConvertKit
  • Start Here
  • Work With Me
  • Guest Post Here
  • Disclosure Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Link and Image Policy

Note: Posts contain affiliate links. Should you choose to purchase a product, I will receive a small commission for the sale at no additional cost to you. Fab Working Mom Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Protected by Copyscape
DMCA.com Protection Status
DMCA.com Protection Status

Copyright © 2022 · Fab Working Mom Life· Hello You Designs

Copyright © 2022 · Sweets Blog on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT