Editorial calendar: method and free template

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar, or editorial schedule, lists the content an organization plans to publish, with its date and channel. Each row describes one piece of content: what it says, where it appears, when, for whom, who produces it and how far along it is.

It sits at the end of a chain of decisions. The strategy sets the goals, targets and channels. The editorial line sets the themes, tone and formats. The calendar turns them into dated publications: the calendar is how you steer your content strategy week after week.

Having a strategy is not enough to stick to it. In the Content Marketing Institute survey published on October 8, 2025, 97% of B2B marketers say they have a content strategy. Yet a third (33%) rank measuring content effectiveness among their top three challenges. The calendar makes visible what the team can really produce and what each piece of content delivered.

What should an editorial calendar include?

Put in the calendar the information used to decide or act, and nothing else. A column nobody fills in ends up making the whole table unreliable. The template offered at the top of the page has 15 columns.

Basic rule: one row = one piece of content on one channel. An article repurposed in the newsletter and then on LinkedIn takes up three rows, with three dates and sometimes three owners.

If you work alone, four columns are enough to start: date, channel, topic, status. Add the others when a question keeps coming back unanswered, for example “who is handling this?” or “what did this content deliver?”.

How do you create an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is built in seven steps, from the editorial line to the monthly review. We recommend planning a quarter ahead for heavy content and a month ahead for the rest.

1. Editorial line: themes, tone, formats and excluded topics. Without it, the calendar fills up with random ideas: start by defining your editorial line.
2. Capacity: how many pieces of content the team can produce, review and distribute each month. This number sets the pace, whatever volume others publish.
3. Key dates: holidays, sales periods, industry events, launches. These are the only fixed dates; everything else is organized around them.
4. Channels and pace: one pace per channel, which the team can keep up steadily. For social networks, the same file serves as a social media publishing calendar. The newsletter and email campaigns also have their rows, so that an email and a post do not announce the same thing on the same day.
5. Quarter to fill in: topics, formats, owners, draft deadlines. Leave one free slot per month for unexpected news.
6. Up-to-date statuses: every status change is recorded the same day. A “Postponed” status is better than an overdue date with no explanation.
7. Monthly review: record the results, reschedule what slipped, fill in the following month and schedule the review of content that is aging.

Where can you find reliable key dates?

Take dates from their official source, not from a list of recurring seasonal topics copied from one year to the next.

• Public holidays in France: Service Public, the French government information site, publishes the table for the year. In 2026, the general case has 11 public holidays; Alsace-Moselle adds two, Good Friday and December 26 (Service Public, page checked on January 1, 2026).
• Sales in France: two legal periods of four weeks, on dates set by ministerial order. Winter sales start on the second Wednesday of January at 8 a.m., or on the first Wednesday if the second falls after the 12th. Summer sales start on the last Wednesday of June (Service Public, page checked on January 21, 2026).
• International days: the UN publishes the list of international days and weeks, month by month; most refer to the resolution that created them. Before devoting content to a “world day” that is not on this list, check who launched it.

Schedule updates

An editorial calendar also schedules reviews. A guide that ages loses value: the “Next update” column puts its review in the calendar, like a publication.

Google warns against the opposite excess. In its self-assessment questions, it mentions changing the date of a page when its content has not changed significantly. It also states that adding or removing a lot of content to seem “fresher” does not work (Google Search Central, page updated on December 10, 2025).

Which tool should you choose for your editorial calendar?

Choose the tool the whole team will open without effort. Alone or as a pair, a spreadsheet is enough. Beyond that, a project management tool adds calendar views and comments, with limitations to check before choosing.

To decide, ask three questions. Who needs to see the calendar? Do you need automatic reminders? Is the view you need included in the free plan? If the answer to the third is no, a shared spreadsheet often remains the simplest solution.

Editorial calendar example

This example is fictitious. Maison Grain, an imaginary roaster that sells its coffee online, publishes on its blog, its newsletter and LinkedIn. Here is an extract of its calendar from October to December 2026, reduced to six columns.

What this example shows:

• The October 6 article is repurposed in the newsletter two days later: two rows, two dates, two statuses.
• The fixed dates (coffee day, end of November, Christmas) are set first; in-depth topics fill the free weeks.
• The Christmas article comes out six weeks before the holiday, to give readers time to plan their purchases.
• The end-of-November offer is called a “promotion”, never “soldes” (sales).
• The review of the guide is scheduled like a publication.

The first three rows appear in full, with their 15 columns, in the template offered at the top of the page.