Seems like a content calendar is the never-ending hamster wheel, right? If you're any form of an entrepreneur in this day in age, you're likely creating content every single day. From Instagram posts to blogs and podcast episodes, email marketing and more, it can be overwhelming to know when to post what to your audience. On top of all that, putting in time and preparation for a single blog post or Instagram caption can be a total time suck!

I know for me, hearing other business owners talk about mapping out their content for the entire year sounded daunting. How do you come up with all those topics?? Well, let me give you a few tips on how we go about creating content ahead, so we can schedule, automate and plan out the entire year stress-free:

1. Google Docs is your best friend

Create a running doc that you're constantly iterating and updating. My team and I have one for questions that we get asked frequently, along with a brain dump of topic ideas. These documents then become topic ideas for blogs, Instagram posts, emails, you name it! With Google Docs, you can share with multiple team members, edit on your phone when you're on the go, etc. so if someone has that spur of the moment idea, it doesn't get forgotten!

2. Map out your 5 categories

What areas are you an expert in? What topics do your FAQs fall under most? For me, it's creative entrepreneurship, marketing, licensing, art/watercolor and teaching. We have these categories broken down in a sheet and we'll constantly be dumping new topics and spin-offs of old posts within these categories. Your content is never going to be set in stone. You should constantly be tweaking it, repurposing it and digging deeper into posts you've covered previously.

For example, I've posted about teaching workshops on the blog multiple times. Each post covers a different angle and different micro topics within that one category!

3. Color code your socks off

Now for the fun part. Creating a content calendar!!

Content calendars are SO crucial to mapping out your year. We divide our different platforms and begin slotting in topics where it makes sense. Leading up to launches, we make sure to condense topics that align with whatever it is we're launching, and if there's any sort of seasonal topics or content, that goes into place as well! Thinking about your year in terms of bigger buckets, and then dissecting it and plugging in micro versions of those big launches, categories, etc. is the best way to do it.

Along with that, having everything mapped out by color throughout a year is SO handy and visually pleasing, right?

It's all about strategic creation. You want to serve your audience and potential customers with the right content at the right time to get the best results in your business. Along with that, it can be such a waste of time trying to plan, prepare AND post all in one day and sitting!

If you want to go even more in depth on this topic, check out the podcast episode: Plan your 2021 Content Calendar (It's from a past year but the process is the same!)