How a Content Strategist Uses the Business Planner

The Restored316 Business Planner* checks off many of the boxes for what I look for in a great planning tool, and the fact that one planner covers my business and my content is a bonus. As a content strategist, I even recommend the Business Planner to my clients.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

All my life I’ve been addicted to office supplies. Back to school shopping was my jam so I could get shiny new notebooks, and shopping for a new calendar each year always excited me. You could say organization and planning are in my blood. I’m always on the lookout for tools that help me plan my content strategy and keep my business organized, and I’ve tried my fair share of both digital and print planners.

When Lauren said her Business Planner was now available in digital and print form, it only took one mention of the word “spreadsheets” to get me excited!

I know…I’m a nerd. Spreadsheets make me happy.

HOW A CONTENT STRATEGIST USES THE BUSINESS PLANNER

I’m using a combination of printable pages and spreadsheets from the 2018 Business Planner to track and plan my business effectively, including my content strategy.

Task Planner Sheets

From the printable version, I printed two sets of the monthly planning pages – 1 set to put on my office wall and another set to put in my binder.

I like being able to see the entire calendar year at a glance. It helps me map out my launches, events, conferences, planned vacations, and anything else for my business in the coming year so I can stay on track. I use washi tape and post-it notes, too, so I can easily move things around as needed.

The second set of the monthly calendar pages live in my binder and I fill them in one quarter at a time.

I set goals for my business for the year, then break those goals down into quarterly goals, and each quarterly goal then gets broken down into monthly and weekly tasks so I can chip away at my goals throughout the year. I evaluate these goals each quarter and update my calendar as needed.

I use the weekly planning sheets for things like client meetings, content creation, scheduling social media, etc.

I work in batches, so I have dedicated days each week where I create, edit, or schedule content in bulk, so these things get added to the weekly planning sheets.

For example, after planning my content for the month, I will set aside one day to script then record all of my YouTube videos. I’ll set aside another block of time to edit all of the videos and schedule them to YouTube to drip out over the course of the month.

Marketing Planning Sheets

I also use the printable version of the Marketing Planning Sheets. I only print one quarter at a time to keep in my binder, since I plan my content quarterly.

Once I map out my content themes for each month, I can get more specific about individual topics for YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and blog posts.

I love the newsletter section as well. My email list is a huge part of my content strategy and I love to stay in touch with my subscribers, so having this section built into each week’s content plan makes it easy to maintain cohesiveness across all platforms.

Business Tracking Spreadsheets

For the Business Tracking sheets and the Financial Tracking sheets, I use the digital version of the Business Planner. I’m a sucker for spreadsheets, and things like stats and finances are easier to track and calculate in a spreadsheet.

I combined all four of the Business Tracking sheets into one spreadsheet in Google Drive.

The Business Tracking spreadsheets allow me to make note of my current site analytics and social media followers and track the growth from month to month. I’m also able to keep up with affiliate login information and set goals for my business growth.

Financial Tracking Spreadsheets

I love being able to keep up with all of my finances in one document, and because I’m a spreadsheet nerd, I was able to combine the Financial Tracking spreadsheets that I needed into one master document and add calculations.

I opted not to use the spreadsheet template for Recurring Expenses, opting instead to simply add those to my monthly expense tabs as line items.

After merging the spreadsheet templates into one master Financial spreadsheet, I added calculations to the Yearly Income tab that will automatically keep a running tally of monthly expenses and income throughout the year as new line items are added to each tab.

I’ve created a video tutorial to show you how to do this for your own Business Planner spreadsheets.