How to create a basic content calendar in Notion
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One thing I’ve found really hard to navigate is tracking ideas as an entrepreneur. It can be really hard to keep track of those! I often have them while I’m taking a shower, or while I’m laying in bed, or when I get up to get another cup of coffee, and so many times I’ve forgotten important details it before I sat back down at my desk.
If you can move towards using some kind of project management system, instead of losing those ideas, you’ll have a place to jot them down no matter where you are! (Except the shower. 😬)
Having a list you can search & filter through also helps you re-evaluate what you write down. Is that actually a good idea? Do I actually need to do that thing? Or do I need to file that away for the future?
Why I prefer using Notion
My favorite thing to use for this is Notion, so that's what I'm going to show you how to use today.
Specifically I want to help you build a basic database or a wiki of all of the content ideas that you can use to market your service, your product, your website, –whatever. I'm actually going to show you step by step how to build that very basic system so that you can manage all of the ideas, the statuses for all of those ideas, images, content, etc. You’ll have a place to type out your notes for each idea or post, and more.
And if I can show you how to do it in 30 minutes or less, as a long winded person, this shouldn't take you very much time to set up, so just follow along with me!
Get Started with Notion
If you haven't created a Notion account yet, you don't have one, you can create a free account here*, and then you can follow along with me.
If you already have an account, congratulations! You're in the Notion club & I’m happy you're there with me. 😁
Create Your First Notion Page
First, you need to create a new page. In the Private area of the sidebar menu in your Notion account, click the plus sign to create a new page. Give it a title, an icon to represent the page type, and a fun cover image if you want, too.
For this template build, you’ll want to set it as full width from the ••• ellipsis menu in the top righthand corner. Then click underneath the title to start adding content to the page.
From here on out, I'm going to do this in the template design I’ve already built so I can see a reference for each step as we create it, but I just wanted to show you the basics of how to get the page started first.
After you've created the page in your sidebar menu on the left, you can drag this page into any of these other pages or change it’s position by watching the blue insert marker as you drag it up or down. The blue line indicates that it will be repositioned between the pages above & below the line. The blue highlight box indicates that you are moving it INSIDE the page title that’s highlighted in the sidebar. You can even click the ellipsis ••• on the page to move it to a location that you can't even see in the sidebar menu, if you know exactly what page title you're looking for before you move it.
So it can live anywhere you want!
Add Fun Elements: Notepads & GIFs or Stickers (optional)
Let's start with the fun stuff first because they’re easy to add & will help get you familiar with Notion basics before we make the database.
Watch the video above from 03:15 to 07:48 to see the tutorial for these pieces if you need a visual. 😁
Pick your graphics
Up in the top left corner of the page, you can add some cool graphics, images, GIFs, or stickers. It's totally up to you, and if it's not your thing, just skip it. If you want to give it a try, hop on over to giphy.com/stickers, pick out a sticker you like, and copy its code or link. Then, you can just paste it right here in Notion as an embed. If you don’t like it afterall, you can use the ••• ellipsis menu on the block to replace it with a different sticker or a GIF (as long as you have the new link).
Create your columns
Next, let's talk about layout. We've got two columns going on here. Starting from the top, just split the space into two by pressing / on your keyboard & typing “2 columns,” then click that option to choose that setting. Now you've got one column on your left and one on your right. You can embed your graphic in either of these columns, if you want!
To resize the graphic, look for the small black line on the right. If you click on that, you can drag it left or right to make it smaller or larger. If you want to add a caption underneath it, just hover over the image to access the options. If your image is big enough, you'll see a caption icon in the top right corner, but if your image is on the smaller side you can find the caption option from the ••• ellipsis menu in the top right corner of the image.
Add a toggle to hide/show content
In the second column, I decided to add a toggle - you know, one of those FAQ-style drop-down thingies. Depending on what you need, you can either have toggles that are just plain text or ones that come with big, attention-grabbing headings. Whichever type you choose, you'll notice that when there's no content inside the toggle block, the triangle icon for the toggle turns grey and when there is, it turns black.
For this particular template, I went ahead and typed in a short title and pasted a link to a handy Loom video that shares a full walkthrough of this template for my Club members who want to use this template. This template is available for free inside the Club, already pre-built for you, but I'm just showing you how I made it so you can follow along with me & make your own.
Make a digital sticky note
Underneath the toggle, we’ll add what Notion calls a “callout” block. By default, i's going to use the same style that I used last on this page, but if you click this six dot icon next to any block, you can access the colors options and change it. If you want it to look like an actual sticky note, you can pick a sticky-note color. You can also choose an icon for the callout, and for those you can use an emoji, an icon from Notion, or upload a custom graphic. If you click on icons, you can choose the color first, then see all the icons previewed in that color. In this case, I chose the yellow icon color and picked a notification icon.
After you set the style for the callout, where it says “Type something…”, that is going to be sort of the title of the notepad, so I just typed “NOTE PAD” and pressed enter to add another line. By default, it's going to take you out of the callout, but if you select the six dot icon next to the new & empty paragraph you just started, then you can click and drag it back up into the callout (or anywhere else), much like Squarespace. If I move that new paragraph back up into the callout, now I’ll have more area to type inside it.
Add a divider under the title
Add a divider underneath the “NOTE PAD” title by typing --- (dash dash dash) on your keyboard, or pressing / and selecting divider from the popup menu. You can't change the color of the divider though. To change the color of the text inside the callout though, you can just highlight it, make it bold and choose a color from the rich text formatting bar.
Next, to create the extra empty space, just press enter a few times to make the callout look more like a sticky-note that’s ready for your next errant thoughts!
To get out of the callout & keep editing the page, instead of pressing Enter again, click in the empty space beneath it or click the plus sign out to the left of it to add something new underneath it.
So now we have the sticker, we have the toggle with hidden content inside, and we have the notepad!
Using synced blocks to access the Notepad elsewhere
You can also turn any of this into a synced block if you want to, and that would actually sync the content inside with any of it’s copies elsewhere in your Notion account block, you could actually select it this way by clicking that six dot icon and copying it, pressing command C or control C on your keyboard and pasting it somewhere else.
Uh, and that would actually allow you to type whatever notes you need to type in here, just quick thoughts, whatever, and then also show up in another place without. Like, it syncs. It literally stays in sync with each other, whether or not you edit it on either end. So just good to know.
Create your content calendar in 30 minutes or less
Create an inline database to get started
1. Click this icon to add a new element to the page.
2. Type "inline" to filter the block options. You're looking for "inline database."
3. Click "Database - Inline" to add a new inline database to this page.
4. Give the database a title, then hit [[enter]]
5. Click the "Table" tab to access the settings for this view.
6. Click "Rename"
7. Type "Posts To Do" (or something similar) then hit [[enter]]
Add properties (columns) in the table
8. Click "Properties" in the same menu to add some new column fields to the table
9. Click on the "Tags" property to change its name & add some options.
10. Change the name to "Categories." This will create a dropdown where you can select the different topics you will cover in your content.
11. Click "Sort" to change how the list will be organized.
12. Click "Alphabetical" to organize the list alphabetically, making it easier to find the option you want from the list, later.
13. Click "Add an option" to start adding your different topics (categories)
14. Type in your first category name, then hit [[enter]]. Repeat until you have all the categories you need. (Don't worry you can edit these any time, later!)
15. Click the back arrow to go back to the main Properties menu to add another column.
16. Click "New property"
17. Type "date" to filter the list & find the Date property type.
18. Click "Date"
19. Change the name of that date field to "Publish Date"
20. Check the settings (date format + time format), then click "Duplicate property" to add another date field.
21. Click the "Property name" field to rename it, and type "Do Date" (or due date) for the date you need to start working on this content.
22. Click "Date format" to change it
23. Click "Relative" if you'd like to see the relevant day of the week instead of the date (ie: "Monday" vs Monday's actual calendar date)
24. Click the back arrow to go back to the main Properties menu again.
25. If you accidentally get out of that pop-out menu, you can add more columns from the plus sign at the end of the columns list in the table, here.
26. Now let's add a new "URL" property to add the published content link when it's done.
27. Type "Post URL" to name it.
28. Click this checkbox to turn on/off the toggle if you want to see the whole link in this column. It may be "on" by default, so I clicked it to turn it "off."
29. Go back to the main Properties menu again.
30. Add a "Text" property and call it "Notes" for a quick/easy place to jot down short thoughts/updates for each post
31. Turn on/off the "Wrap in view" option by clicking this toggle if you want.
Create post statuses
32. Add another property for statuses
33. Click "Status" for the property type.
34. Click any existing status to rename it & change its color. I suggest changing "Not Started" to "Idea" instead for this one.
35. Click any of these ➕ plus signs to add/edit more statuses in each of the sections for to do, in progress, and complete status groups.
36. Click this six-dot icon to click & drag the statuses to rearrange them if needed.
37. At the top of each status option's settings, you can choose to set any of them as the default, otherwise it will be the first option in the To-Do group.
38. From that same panel, you can change the color options for each status.
Resize & rearrange your columns
39. Hover over the divider between column titles, then click & drag when you see the blue bar to resize the column widths. You can also click on any column header and drag to move the column to a new place, left or right.
Add automatic calculations at the bottom of each column
40. Click "Calculate" at the bottom of any column to set up percent or calculations for that column.
41. To set up a percentage of complete statuses, for example, click "Percent" then "Percent per group" then click "Complete"
42. To set up an automatic count of all rows in the database, click "Calculate" then "Count" then "Count all"
Add some content to the database
43. All new databases will have 3 rows by default.
44. You can use these rows to add your first 3 post titles.
45. If you need more, click the "➕ New" button at the bottom to add 1 new row with each click.
How to make bulk edits to multiple posts at the same time
46. Hover over the far left side of the database to access to multi-row selection checkboxes, if you want to make bulk changes to the row's properties.
47. After selecting the first checkbox, click the checkbox next to however many more rows you want to edit at the same time.
48. Once they're all selected, use the popup menu to select the property you want to edit for all of the selected rows. For example, to change categories for all of them, click the "Categories" button here
49. Then choose the category you want to apply to all 3 rows.
50. Click on the "x selected' text here to deselect the group when you're done making bulk edits to your selection.
51. Click inside the box for each row, in each column to individually edit properties for each row.
Assign dates to the posts
52. Next, let's assign a couple of "Publish Dates"
53. Choose a date from the date picker popup menu.
54. Click off of the popup menu to close it.
55. Next, let's assign some deadlines in the "Do Date" property.
Hide the table's title (optional)
56. Click this icon to access the view's title settings.
57. Then click "Hide database title" if you don't want to see it.
Add a filter for this view to hide completed posts
58. Next, click this filter icon to set up a data filter for this view.
59. Click "Status" to filter in/out by their status.
60. Click the checkbox for this "To-Do" group, or individual options inside it, to make sure we WILL see all of the posts with these statuses.
61. Next, click the checkbox for this "In progress" group, or individual options inside it, to make sure we WILL see all of the posts with these statuses too.
62. Once the first two status groups are selected, click somewhere outside the pop-out menu to close it. (We don't want to select the Complete status group too, in this case.)
Sort posts in the table by their date
63. To sort the rows by any property, select this icon.
64. To sort the rows by "Do Date" & keep your next deadlines at the top, select it from the drop-down menu here.
65. Click anywhere outside of the sorting dropdown to close it.
Create a Completed Posts View
66. Click on the "Posts To Do" tab, then click "Duplicate" to make an exact copy of the first view.
67. Once you have a copy, name it "Completed," then click the "Filter" icon to change the filter options in this view.
68. Click the current filter in blue, "Status: To-do, In progress"
69. Click their checkboxes to deselect the ones that had been selected before & turn them OFF in this view.
70. Click the "Complete" status group option to select the checkbox for all of your Complete statuses in this view. This tab will now ONLY show posts with completed statuses.
71. Click the "Sort" icon to change the settings, or access it from the ••• icon in the pop-up menu.
72. Click "Do Date" to change the property you're sorting completed posts by.
73. Click the "Publish Date" property to sort completed posts by that instead, since there are no deadlines in this tab's view.
74. Click "Ascending" to change it to "Descending" to put the latest publish date at the top.
75. Click the X icon to close the popup.
Create a Board View
76. Click the "Posts To Do" tab again
77. Click "Duplicate" again
78. Type "Board by Status" to rename this view, then click "Layout" to change the layout from table to something else.
79. Select "Board" to create a Trello-like kanban board view of your table.
80. Click this checkbox to turn OFF/ON property wrapping if you want the cards in each status column to all be the same size.
81. Click this checkbox to color the background of each column based on its status color.
82. Go back to the "Properties" menu
83. Click this 👁️ icon to turn ON/OFF any of the properties, making them visible/hidden on their cards in the kanban view.
84. Go back again, then click "Group" to edit how the cards will be grouped in each column
85. Click this toggle to show or hide empty groups. I like to keep it on for kanban views so I can see each status as a column, even if it's empty.
Removing or changing a filter
86. Now click this icon to change the filters in this view, so we can see all the posts you want to see.
87. Click "To-do, In progress" in blue to change the filter options.
88. Click the checkboxes to select or deselect the options you want. I'll just click "Complete" to turn on those statuses too.
89. Or, remove the filter entirely by clicking this ••• icon from the filter menu
90. Then selecting "Delete filter" from the pop-out.
Create a Calendar view
91. Click "Board by Status" to duplicate this view without the filter.
92. Click "Duplicate"
93. Type "Calendar" to rename it. Then click "Layout" to change the layout type.
94. Click "Calendar," then in the bottom half choose your calendar settings.
95. The "Show calendar by" setting allows you to choose which date property ("Do Date" or "Publish Date") it will use to display your posts on the calendar.
96. Go back to the view's "Properties" panel
97. Click the 👁️ icon to turn ON/OFF any properties you want to show/hide in the calendar view.
98. I'll turn on the "Status" and "Post URL" and "Do Date" properties, since the card will be on the calendar day for the "Publish Date"
99. Click the X to close the menu.
100. Click the "No date (X)" button to see the remaining posts that have not been assigned a "Publish Date" yet (and so aren't showing on the calendar).
101. Click on one and drag it onto the calendar date you want to assign it to.
102. Repeat for any others you want to assign "Publish Dates"
103. If you accidentally put one on the wrong date, click & drag it to a new date; they're very easy to move around!
Open any page to add its content
104. Click on any post to open its own page view.
105. To edit its properties, click any "Empty" or filled property values.
106. Click on any property name to click & drag it in the list, up or down, to rearrange them in a different order. For example, you can move "Status" to the top of the list to see it first. (This will be applied globally within this database, not specific to this post's page.)
107. Next, click "Do Date" and drag it upward to move it under the "Status" property.
108. Next, click "Publish Date" and drag it upward to move it under the "Do Date" property.
109. Next, click "Post URL" and drag it upward to move it under the "Publish Date" property.
110. Then click in the empty white space below the "Add a comment" section, to start adding your content to this post's page.
111. Here you can create an outline of the post, write the whole post, paste a video transcript, add images, videos, graphics, and more!
