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Planning · 6 min read

Plan a month of content in an hour.

Not a content calendar with forty colored cells. A grid you'll actually follow, built from what's already working.

Most content plans die by the second week. They die because they were built from ideas, and ideas are cheap on a Sunday afternoon and expensive on a Thursday with a phone in your hand. This plan is built the other way round: from what's already winning, in the time you actually have.

Minute 0 to 15: pick four buckets

Every post you make this month falls into one of four buckets. Pick yours now and don't add a fifth.

  • Answer. A question buyers actually ask, answered with the product in frame.
  • Show. The thing being used, made, or compared. No talking required.
  • Person. A face, an opinion, a reply to a comment. The reason people follow a brand instead of a catalog.
  • Save. Something worth keeping: a checklist, a comparison, a how-to. The format that earns saves and shares.

Minute 15 to 35: find one winner per bucket

For each bucket, find one post in your niche that's winning right now. Not the biggest account, the post with the most saves or shares for its size. Write down the move underneath it in one sentence. That's your reference. Four buckets, four references, four sentences.

Minute 35 to 50: fill the grid

Draw four columns for the four buckets and as many rows as weeks. Each week gets one post per bucket. That's four posts a week, sixteen a month. If that's too many, cut a whole row, not a column. Consistency across buckets beats volume in one.

For each cell, write three things only: the opening line, the format, the length. If you can't write the opening line in ten seconds, the idea isn't ready. Skip it and come back.

Minute 50 to 60: schedule the shoot, not the posts

Batch by setting, not by date. Everything filmed at the desk, one session. Everything filmed at the sink, one session. Two sessions a week covers sixteen posts a month. Put the sessions in your calendar. The posting dates will take care of themselves.

The rule for what to drop

At the end of each week, look at the scores. Whichever bucket lost, cut its weakest idea next week and give that slot to whichever bucket won. The grid stays the same size. The mix shifts toward what works. After a month, your plan looks nothing like the one you started with, and that's the point.

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