Since September 2024, I’ve decided to commit myself to publish 3 YouTube Shorts a week until end of the year for one of my YouTube channel. I started to prepare and schedule the Shorts and then track them in a content planner that I am already using.
However from experience, I find that if it is something I wish to remain consistent and commit to doing, it is most effective if I track it separately. This enables me to focus just on the task or goal at hand. Hence I came out with a quarterly planning sheet which outlines with one quarter in each outline. At the moment, I am using it to track the Shorts I am publishing so that I can quickly see the entire content planned out.
As I find the tracker to be useful, I’ve included the quarterly planning tracker in my shop in my Buymeacoffee page. You are most welcomed to purchase it which would really help to support me:
The pdf pack contains:
- 4 pages of planner for each quarter of 2025
- 4 pages of blank quarterly planner
Alternatively, you can also create your own quarterly planning on your own or you can also try out the free template for quarter 4 of 2024. Do note I have parked the file under my shop because from past years, the download would utilize my blog capacity which resulted me to exceed the bandwidth allocated for my site.
Some examples of how you can use the quarterly planner page:
1. To track a goal
For example, you may have set a goal to lose a certain amount of weight. You may established that in order to lose the weight, you would need to commit to exercise 30 minutes for day or go to the gym 3 times a week. Each time you accomplish it, you may indicate on the date itself.
Then you can allocate a particular day for example every Sunday to do a weigh in. From then, you would be able to see immediately when you look at the tracker on how much of weight you have managed to lose. This would then be the motivation for you to continue and you would be less tempted to miss a day.
2. Habit tracking
Let’s say you wish to develop a better habit of say, to walk 10000 steps a day. You can track the steps you have done using a pedometer, then record it down each day on this quarterly page. When each day is being filled up, you would be more inclined to stick to the habit in order not to miss a day.
However if you do happen to miss a day, don’t be too hard on yourself. Try not to skip it two days in a roll.
3. Content tracking
Perhaps you have finally decided to start your own YouTube channel after watching many motivational videos by various newcomers who have started their own channels and shared on how their lives have changed, even though they have very little subscribers and no one really watched their videos.
In order to publish a video, there are many steps involved such as scripting, filming, editing and uploading (create thumbnails, title and description). If you work a full time job and decided to allocate your weekends to go all in YouTube by trying out for a quarter. You may then break down the tasks you wish to work on, on specific days….for example you do research and scripting from Monday- Thursday, then filming on Friday/ Saturday and you spend Saturday/Sunday editing. When we physically break down the tasks into smaller chunks, it become less daunting and challenging. You may want to give it a tick if you have accomplished it.
You may also want use a particular day in the week to record stats like overall views, watch hours or subscriber count. When looking at the bird eye’s view, we can see the channel slowly growing and that would become a motivation to be consistent.
What to do with the records
After the duration is done, you may file away the sheet as you may want to refer back to it in the future. What I do is that I would use binder clips to attach them together and then file them away in a file. This is the same method I use to file my mom’s medical bills and expenses for the past few years very systematically.
How this method of planning has helped me
Why I encourage you to try is because this is from my own personal experience. About 2 years ago, I decided that I wanted to pin daily on Pinterest. So I took out my content planner, create, plan and schedule my pins, and then list down the pin I am publishing on each day. I prefer planning on paper because if I use an app, I would likely be distracted when I check my phone and be tempted to click on other apps to check on things.
After doing this for about a month, each time I see the planner, I become motivated to continue and remain consistent. Certain times, I pin once a day, and other times, twice. I got really consistent in creating and posting and this really helped to grow my Pinterest account. I love making the pins as it expand my creativity and provided me with a hobby I can still do while being a caregiver.
There was a time I did stop when my mom got really unwell and critical and I dropped everything I did to fully focus to look after her. When her condition stabilized, I opened my planner pages again and got inspired to pick back up from where I have left off.
Also Google made some algo updates in their search and it cause the traffic of many blogs to drop drastically, some by 90%. I did not lose much traffic because Pinterest help to drive traffic to my blog. You may have likely find my post from Pinterest.
With this method of planning that had proven to keep me consistent on Pinterest, I decided to create a system to enable me to publish 3 Shorts a week till end of this year. I usually would keep create in advance and then plan and schedule them. When I see that I am able to keep creating content in advance and scheduling them, I get the motivation to continue on and be more consistent.
If I am not creating content, I would have wasted the time anyway by picking up my phone and ended up doomscrolling when I wish to unwind. Creating content has helped me to put my time to better use such as writing posts like this instead of just mindlessly scrolling and wasting my time and energy that I would never get back.
