Editorial Calendar Template

An editorial calendar is more than a list of publish dates — every article needs time for writing, editing, images and approvals. Enter your planned articles with their publish dates and authors, set how many working days each stage takes, and this planner schedules the whole production pipeline backwards, flags clashes where one person has too many deadlines in a week, and exports the plan for your team.

What makes an editorial calendar different

A basic content calendar shows what goes out and when. An editorial calendar adds the production workflow behind each piece: who pitches it, who writes it, when the draft is due, who edits it, when images and design are ready, and who gives final approval. Newsrooms, magazines, company blogs and content teams use editorial calendars to keep many articles moving at once without last-minute rushes.

Working backwards from the publish date

1. Fix the publish date — often set by a campaign, event or regular slot.
2. Allow a final review stage (fact-check, legal, stakeholder sign-off).
3. Before that, design and images: graphics, photos, alt text, layout.
4. Before that, editing: structure, clarity, style, SEO.
5. Before that, drafting: research, interviews, writing.
6. Before that, pitch approval: the angle and brief agreed.

The planner subtracts each stage’s working days from the publish date to set every deadline. With the default stages — 2 days pitch, 5 days draft, 3 days edit, 2 days design, 1 day final review — each article needs about 13 working days of lead time.

Stages and who owns them

Balancing workload

Deadlines tend to cluster. If one writer has three drafts due in the same week, or one editor has four final reviews, quality suffers. The planner counts each person’s draft and review deadlines by week and warns when someone has three or more, so you can move publish dates or reassign work before the crunch.

What to track for each article

• Working title and target keyword or topic.
• Audience and goal (awareness, sign-ups, sales, support).
• Writer, editor, designer and approver.
• Deadlines for each stage.
• Status: pitched, drafting, editing, design, review, scheduled, published.
• URL and publish date once live.
• Promotion plan and performance after 30 days.

Worked example

A gardening blog plans five November articles. With the default stage lengths and weekends skipped, the “Beginner’s guide to composting” (publishing Tuesday 10 November) needs the pitch in by Thursday 22 October and approved by Monday 26 October, the draft by Monday 2 November, editing done by Thursday 5 November and design finished by Monday 9 November, leaving a day for final review. Leo edits three of the five pieces, but their edit deadlines fall in different weeks, so the planner shows no workload warnings. The team downloads the CSV into their shared spreadsheet and assigns designers.

Common editorial calendar mistakes

• Planning publish dates without production time.
• No owner for images and design.
• Skipping a buffer for sickness, holidays and revisions.
• Letting approvals drift — set a named approver and deadline.
• Not reviewing what performed well before planning the next month.

Editorial calendar vs content calendar vs social calendar

Larger teams often keep all three, linked: the editorial calendar feeds articles into the content calendar, and the social calendar promotes them.

Setting realistic stage lengths

Base stage lengths on your team’s real turnaround, not ideal conditions. Look at a few recent articles: how long did drafts actually take, how many rounds of edits, how long did approvals sit in someone’s inbox? Longer research pieces, interviews and data-heavy articles need more drafting time; short news items may need only a day. Add a buffer before important campaign dates.

Integrating with your tools

Import the CSV into Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, Trello or Asana. Most tools let you turn the dates into calendar views and add reminders. Keep one source of truth: if dates change in the tool, don’t keep editing an old spreadsheet copy.

Privacy

The planner runs in your browser. Article titles and names are not uploaded or stored.