What to do When Your Editorial Calendar Fails You

Confession time, at this moment, I’m not even sure where my editorial calendar is. You want to know what to do when your editorial calendar fails you? You lose it. Oops. It may be because I actually rearranged a few things this weekend, but that’s besides the point.
For the past few months, I’ve been in a rut. Maybe it was the big change of graduation and going from having a full life to moving back home and having almost no life. But as far as blogging goes, I’m just not feeling it.

It’s not for lack of ideas, it’s just when I sit down to work on all these ideas, I get a bit overwhelmed and decide to just not worry about them. Plenty of ideas, but never enough motivation to sit down and work on them all. Despite the plentiful amount of time I have lately, I feel like I have no time because I’m never working on blog posts.
Yesterday I was thinking about what I wanted to write about (today is the day I start edits on Double Played), and how I just wasn’t feeling any of the posts. I’ve been working on brainstorming high-quality content, but it can be time-consuming, and I just always feel so damn pressed for time.
While thinking about it, I came up with four different options on getting my editorial calendar and myself back on track.

1. Write About Something New

This was the first thing that popped into my mind, but I don’t think I’ll do this. I already write about a variety of topics, and nothing new is happening in my life to write about. But if you’re struggling with your editorial calendar, this is something to consider. If it fits into your niche, even better! If it doesn’t, it’s still okay. Sometimes we need something away from our area of “expertise” to stay inspired.

2. Cut Back On Posting

When I was about to graduate, I figured I’d have all the time in the world to create some awesome content. Well, I didn’t. In fact, I’ve drastically cut back on posting. If you’re aiming for five days a week, cut back to three. If that’s too much, aim for once a week. Once you’re comfortable with that, you can change and tweak as you need. If your calendar isn’t working for you, though, cut back to give yourself more time to come up with awesome ideas.

3. Take an Extended Break

When you produce great content, it can wear you out. If your calendar isn’t working, and your brain isn’t being creative, take a break until you feel comfortable with producing again. Whether it’s a month or six, this is for when you feel like you’re totally dry.
It’s okay if you feel like you’re dried up – being a creative is hard. It’s all-consuming. You can’t turn it off until you have nothing left, so take the time and relax and refill up on all those good creative juices.
While these are all great options for someone struggling with their editorial calendar, that wasn’t going to work for me. I came up with two more options, and I’m probably going to pick one of these – though I still haven’t made a final decision.
Wondering what to do when your editorial calendar fails you? Five suggestions to reboot. Share on X

4. Take a Week off From Posting

In that week you aren’t posting new posts, take the time to get ahead. I have a list of posts that I need to devout some time to. If I would just do that, I’d have plenty of content to keep me going for a long time, but I just need to carve out some time to focus on these ideas.

5. Batch It Up

Pick a day during the week and use that day to just write blog posts. I’ll probably end up doing this at least once a week the next few weeks, but focus clearly on that, and not much else. If you have a weekend day off (go ahead and laugh at that silly suggestion), get to work. Here’s another great post on batch writing.
If you’re having problems with your editorial calendar failing you, hopefully some of these will help you reboot. Editorial calendars are here to help you, but if they aren’t helping, what’s the point?
What do you do when your editorial calendar doesn’t seem to work?