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Shreyas M V · Published · 13 min read
Editorial Calendar Template for a Two-to-Five Person Team
An editorial calendar template is a shared table that lists each piece of content with its stage, owner and dates. This one is built for two to five people and adds what the three template pages read for it do not describe: six stage gates, the conditions an item must meet before it moves to the next stage.
What is an editorial calendar template?
An editorial calendar template is a pre-built table or project that plans what a team publishes, when it goes live and who is responsible for each piece.
Asana describes the calendar itself as a plan that usually lists the content type, the publication date and the person responsible. The version below keeps that core and adds two things: a stage for every row, and a gate between each pair of stages.
Key points before the detail:
- The template has 14 columns, seven stages and six gates, and it fits in one sheet.
- A gate is a short list of conditions that must all be true before an item moves forward, signed by a named person.
- The author of a piece never signs the edit gate on their own work, which is why the roles change with team size.
- Dates run backward from the publish date, and a worked example shows the arithmetic.
- The gates are Kanso's proposal. No source read for this page defines them, and no test of them has been run.
Is an editorial calendar the same as a content calendar?
No, though many teams use the names for one sheet. Asana's template page draws the line this way: an editorial calendar covers strategy, themes and campaigns over a quarter or a year, while a content calendar tracks individual posts, due dates and assignees by the week or month.
Asana is a vendor and the distinction is its framing, not a standard. It also says the two are not exclusive and that many teams use both.
For two to five people, running two documents is overhead. The simplest arrangement is one file with two tabs: a Plan tab holding quarterly themes, and a Pipeline tab holding one row per piece, which is the table in the next section. The rest of this page is about the Pipeline tab.
What columns should an editorial calendar template have?
It should have 14 columns, enough to answer who, what, where, when and what state each piece is in. The table lists them with the reason for each and where the column comes from.
| Column | What goes in it | Why it is there | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working title | A plain name for the piece, not the final headline | Lets everyone find the row without opening the draft | Kanso |
| Reader question or topic | The one question the piece answers, or the campaign it belongs to | Keeps the calendar about readers, not slots to fill | Asana lists topics, campaigns and key messages for an editorial calendar |
| Stage | One of seven stages, from Idea to Reviewed | Shows where every item is at a glance | Asana's status field (not started, in review, ready to publish) |
| Last gate passed | G1 to G6, or none | Records proof that the previous check happened | Kanso |
| Owner | One named person for the piece | One owner per item avoids shared blame | Asana lists the person responsible; a community thread lists an owner column |
| Reviewer | A second person who is not the owner | Makes the edit gate possible | Kanso |
| Channel | Blog, newsletter, LinkedIn, video or another | Decides the format and who publishes | Asana's primary channel field; a community thread lists a channel column |
| Format | Guide, case study, checklist, post, video | Sets the effort and the due dates | Asana's content type field; a community thread lists a format column |
| Target keyword | The search phrase, only for search-led pieces | Stops two pieces aiming at one query | A community thread lists a keyword column; Kanso makes it optional |
| Brief link | A link to the content brief | Gate 2 needs a brief to check against | Kanso |
| Draft due | The date the draft must reach the edit stage | Turns the publish date into a workback schedule | Asana advises deadlines for each production step |
| Publish date | The date the piece goes live | The anchor for every other date | Asana's publish date field |
| Approval | Who approved, and on what date | Records the edit gate | Asana's approval status field |
| Review date and metric | A date and the one number you will read | Closes the loop so the calendar learns | Kanso |
How the table was put together: the fields Asana lists on its template page came first (due date, primary channel, status, content type, approval status, publish date). An r/content_marketing thread on calendar planning supplied the idea of a short column set that includes an owner and a keyword. Kanso then added the four columns that make gates possible: Last gate passed, Reviewer, Brief link, and Review date and metric.
If 14 feels like too many, the safe cuts are Format and Target keyword. Stage, Owner, Publish date and Last gate passed are the four to keep.
What stages should content move through?
Seven stages cover a piece from idea to review: Idea, Briefed, Drafting, Editing, Ready to publish, Published and Reviewed. Asana's page lists the production steps as brainstorming, drafting, editing, approving and publishing, and its example statuses include not started, in review and ready to publish.
The seven stages below extend that with a Briefed stage before drafting and a Reviewed stage after publishing. Those two additions are Kanso's, because the first prevents drafting without a plan and the second feeds results back into the calendar.
| Stage | What it means | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Idea | A topic or question is parked in the backlog, with no date | Anyone |
| 2. Briefed | The piece has a reason to exist, an owner and a brief | Lead and owner |
| 3. Drafting | The owner is writing, designing or recording against the brief | Owner |
| 4. Editing | A second person checks facts, claims and links | Reviewer |
| 5. Ready to publish | Approved, with final assets and a confirmed date | Owner and lead |
| 6. Published | Live in its channels, with distribution done | Owner |
| 7. Reviewed | The chosen number has been read and one decision logged | Lead |
Keep the stage list fixed for a quarter. If people invent new statuses to describe in-between states, that is a sign a gate condition is missing.
What are stage gates, and what are the six in this template?
A stage gate is a short list of conditions that must all be true before an item can move to the next stage, signed by a named person. The six gates in the table sit between the seven stages, and each one names who signs and what happens when it fails.
Of the three template pages read for this article (Asana, HubSpot and Notion), none defines what must be true to move an item between stages. Asana comes closest with a status field and an approval status, but it names the fields, not the pass conditions. The HubSpot download itself was not available to read, so its contents may go further than its landing page.
| Gate | Moves | Pass when all are true | Signed by | If it fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Idea to Briefed | A reader question is written down. The reason to exist fits in one sentence. Channel and format are chosen. No existing piece already answers the question. | Lead | The item stays in the Idea backlog and gets no date. |
| G2 | Briefed to Drafting | The brief is complete. Sources are named. The owner has a draft due date and has no more than two other items in Drafting. | Lead and owner | The item waits. Its publish date moves, not the brief's standard. |
| G3 | Drafting to Editing | The draft covers the brief. Every figure has a named source and a date. Links are in place. The owner has read it once out loud. | Owner | The draft goes back with notes. The draft due date moves, and the publish date moves only if the slack is gone. |
| G4 | Editing to Ready | A person who is not the owner has checked each claim against its source, read the title and headings, and clicked every link. The approval is recorded with a date. | Reviewer | The item returns to Drafting with a list of fixes. It is never published with the fixes pending. |
| G5 | Ready to Published | Final assets are attached. Channel versions are written. The publish date and the person who will publish are confirmed. | Owner | The publish date moves one slot. Nothing goes out half-ready to hit a date. |
| G6 | Published to Reviewed | On the review date, the chosen number is recorded and one decision is logged: update, repeat the format, or retire it. | Lead | The review date moves once. A second miss is logged as a decision to stop measuring that piece. |
The conditions were derived from the stages above: each gate checks the work the stage before it was supposed to produce. G1 and G2 lean on the idea of a reason to exist and a brief, which the content brief template covers field by field.
Record the result in the Last gate passed column with the date, for example “G3, 12 Nov”. That one habit is what turns the sheet from a schedule into a record.
Who signs each gate on a team of two to five?
The rule is that nobody signs the edit gate, G4, on their own work, and the rest follows from team size. The table shows one workable split for each size.
| Team size | Typical split of owners | How the gates are covered |
|---|---|---|
| 2 people | Lead who also edits, and a writer | The lead edits the writer's pieces. The writer edits the lead's pieces. Nobody passes G4 on their own work. |
| 3 people | Lead, writer, editor or designer | The editor signs G4. The lead signs G1, G2 and G6. |
| 4 people | Lead, two writers, editor or designer | Writers swap pieces for the edit if the editor is the bottleneck. |
| 5 people | Lead, two writers, editor, a distribution or analytics owner | The fifth person owns G5 and G6, which frees the lead for G1 and G2. |
With two people the lead is both approver and editor, so the swap rule matters: each person edits the other's pieces. A one-person team cannot pass G4 honestly, so the closest substitute is to leave a night between drafting and the final read, and that is a workaround rather than a gate.
The G2 condition of at most two other items in Drafting per owner is also a suggestion. It caps work in progress so a late piece does not drag three others with it.
How do you set the calendar up in an hour?
Set it up in six steps that mirror the process Asana describes: goals, tool, channels, cadence, production steps and a review rhythm. Asana's page gives the same sequence, and the version below adapts it to the template on this page.
- Write the goal. One sentence on what the content is for. Asana says goals and KPIs shape the content you plan.
- Choose the tool. A spreadsheet is the default for a small team. The format section below compares four.
- List your channels. Write down every place you publish, such as the blog, a newsletter, social posts and video, so none is forgotten.
- Set a cadence per channel. Decide how often each channel gets a piece, and be honest about what the team can finish.
- Map the production steps. Paste the 14 columns and the stage list, then put the gate table on a second tab so it sits next to the data.
- Fill four weeks and book the review. Add the next four weeks of items, work back from each publish date, and book a recurring review.
A r/AskMarketing thread asks where and how people build a social media calendar, which is the question most teams get stuck on first. Kanso's answer is to give one setup a full month before changing it.
What does a dated worked example look like?
A piece with a publish date of Thursday 19 November 2026 gets six dated checkpoints, counted backward in working days. The example is illustrative: it is a made-up piece for a hypothetical team, not a real team's results.
| Checkpoint | Offset | Date | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brief done, G2 passed | 10 working days before | Thu 5 Nov 2026 | Lead and owner |
| Draft due, G3 passed | 5 working days before | Thu 12 Nov 2026 | Owner |
| Edit done, G4 passed | 2 working days before | Tue 17 Nov 2026 | Reviewer |
| Assets and channel versions final, G5 passed | 1 working day before | Wed 18 Nov 2026 | Owner |
| Publish date | Day 0 | Thu 19 Nov 2026 | Owner |
| Review, G6 passed | 10 working days after | Thu 3 Dec 2026 | Lead |
The arithmetic, counting back from 19 November: 1 working day is Wed 18 Nov, 2 is Tue 17 Nov, 3 is Mon 16 Nov, 4 is Fri 13 Nov, 5 is Thu 12 Nov, and 10 is Thu 5 Nov. The review date counts forward the same way, with 10 working days after 19 November landing on Thu 3 Dec. Remove any public holiday that falls inside the range and shift the dates.
That gives the owner five working days to draft (6, 9, 10, 11 and 12 November) and the reviewer three to edit (13, 16 and 17 November). Ten working days divided by five working days a week is two weeks, so a team that publishes one piece a week has about two pieces between G2 and publication at any moment. That count tells you whether the team can carry the cadence before you commit to it.
What should happen when a gate is missed?
When a gate is missed, move the date, never the standard. The last column of the gate table says what to do for each one, and the principle is the same throughout: a late piece is better than an unchecked one.
Three rules keep the calendar honest. A piece that fails a gate stays in its stage with the reason written in the row. A date moves once, with a note, and a second move needs the lead to decide whether the piece is still worth doing. A piece that has missed the same gate twice goes back to Idea.
These rules are Kanso's suggestions and have not been tested on a team. They are a starting point, and the first month of use will show which ones to loosen.
Which format fits: Google Sheets, Excel, Notion or Asana?
A spreadsheet fits most teams of two to five, and the other formats earn their place when you need linked records or per-step tasks. The table sets out what HubSpot, Notion and Asana say about their own formats, dated 29 October 2026, with Kanso's read of each.
| Format | What the vendor says | Kanso's view for two to five people |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel) | HubSpot's free blog calendar templates come in Excel and Google Sheets formats, with instructions for each. | Easiest place to paste the 14 columns. Add a dropdown for Stage and a filter by owner. |
| Notion database | Notion says its templates build databases you can relate, filter and view as board, timeline or calendar, and calls spreadsheet templates usually static. | Fits a team that already keeps its docs in Notion. That comparison is Notion's own claim. |
| Asana project | Asana's page lists calendar view, subtasks, custom fields and a task per production step with its own deadline. | Stronger than a sheet when pieces need subtasks and per-step deadlines. More setup, and more to maintain. |
| Calendar app | HubSpot lists a Google Calendar format alongside Excel and Google Sheets. | Good for dates, weak for stages and gates, so keep the gate record somewhere else. |
Where Asana or Notion is the better choice: Asana when pieces need subtasks and a deadline for every production step, and Notion when you want the calendar linked to briefs, docs and tasks in one place. Neither claim has been tested for this page.
Canva and Word are common searches for this template. Canva appears in search results with a social media calendar page, but that page was not read for this article, and none of the pages read covers Word. A document table works for a printed plan, but it cannot filter by owner or stage, which the gates depend on.
How often should you review the editorial calendar?
Review it every week or every other week, and at minimum once a month. Asana states that most teams review and update weekly or biweekly and that a monthly review should check the plan still matches goals and upcoming campaigns.
A 20-minute weekly review is enough for a small team: read the Stage column for anything that has sat in one stage past its date, clear the failed gates, and fill the next empty slot. Once a month, read the Review date and metric column and decide which formats to repeat. The weekly growth checklist shows how to fit that into a wider 60-minute review.
Distribution belongs in the same meeting. The content distribution guide covers what to do with a piece after it moves to Published.
What is documented and what is Kanso's analysis?
The documented points come from three vendor pages read on 29 October 2026, and everything else on this page is Kanso's design. The two lists keep them apart.
Documented, with the source
- Asana defines an editorial calendar as a plan listing content type, publication date and the person responsible, and distinguishes it from a content calendar by time horizon and detail.
- Asana's template tags due date, primary channel, content status, content type, approval status and publish date, and lists production steps from drafting to publishing.
- Asana says most teams review weekly or biweekly and at minimum monthly.
- HubSpot offers blog editorial calendar templates in Excel, Google Sheets and Google Calendar formats, with instructions.
- Notion says its templates create databases that can be related, filtered and viewed as board, timeline or calendar.
- None of those three pages, as read, sets out pass conditions for moving between stages. The HubSpot download was not read.
Kanso's analysis, not tested
- The 14-column set, the seven stages and the six gate conditions.
- The sign-off split by team size and the two-items-per-owner limit.
- The working-day offsets in the worked example and the fail-and-move rules.
- The view that a spreadsheet suits most teams of two to five.
- The claim that stage gates are missing from other templates, which is limited to the three pages read. Six other pages that ranked for this query were not read.
Where does Kanso fit into this calendar?
Kanso can help with one stage, Drafting, for search-led pieces, and it does not run the calendar. The Writer Agent turns Search Console opportunities into long-form article drafts in your brand voice, for you to review and publish yourself.
A draft from any tool enters at G3 and still has to pass G4 with a human reviewer. Kanso does not publish to a content management system or schedule posts, so the calendar stays in your own sheet. The human-in-the-loop guide explains where approval gates belong in an AI workflow, and plans are on the pricing page.
Editorial calendar template: frequently asked questions
What is an editorial calendar template?
An editorial calendar template is a ready-made table or project for planning what content you publish, when it goes live and who is responsible for each piece. Asana describes it as a tool for planning, scheduling and organizing content across channels, usually listing the content type, publication date and the person responsible. The template on this page adds a stage and a gate record to each row.
What is a content calendar template?
A content calendar template is the same kind of table, usually used for day-to-day production and publishing of individual posts. Asana separates the two: it says a content calendar tracks individual posts, due dates and assignees on a weekly or monthly horizon, while an editorial calendar covers themes and campaigns over a quarter or a year. For a team of two to five, one table with both layers is simpler.
What is an editorial calendar?
An editorial calendar is a content plan that shows what a team will publish, when it goes live and where it will appear. Asana adds that it usually lists the content type, the publication date and the person responsible for each piece. It is a planning document, not a content management system.
What is a content calendar?
A content calendar is a schedule of individual pieces of content with their due dates and owners. In Asana's definition it handles execution and publishing, usually week by week or month by month. Many teams use the two names for the same sheet, so check what a template actually contains before you rely on the label.
What should a content calendar include?
A content calendar should include the topic, owner, channel, format, status, due date and publish date for every piece. Asana's template tags the due date, primary channel, status, content type, approval status and publish date. This page's template adds a reviewer, the last gate passed, a brief link and a review date with one metric.
How do I stop a content calendar from getting confusing?
Keep one table with one row per piece, one owner per row, and a fixed list of stages that nobody edits mid-quarter. Add columns only when a decision depends on them. Test one setup for a month and change it only if it fails, because switching tools every few weeks costs more than any template saves.
Where should I build my content calendar?
Build it in the tool your team already opens every day, because a calendar nobody opens fails regardless of its design. HubSpot offers templates in Excel, Google Sheets and Google Calendar formats, Notion offers database templates, and Asana offers a project template. Use a spreadsheet if you are unsure, since the 14 columns on this page paste straight into one.
Is there a free editorial calendar template?
Yes. As of 29 October 2026, HubSpot offers free blog editorial calendar templates for Excel, Google Sheets and Google Calendar, and Asana describes its editorial calendar template as free. The table on this page is also free to copy into any sheet, and it adds the stage gates that those two pages do not describe.
How often should you review an editorial calendar?
Review it weekly or every other week, and at minimum once a month. That is Asana's stated guidance: most teams review and update weekly or biweekly, with a monthly check that planned content still matches goals and upcoming campaigns. Add a review date and one number to each published piece so the monthly check has something to read.
Do I need both an editorial calendar and a content calendar?
Not for a team of two to five. Asana says many teams use both, one for strategy and one for execution, and that you can combine both views in a single project. One table with a Plan tab for themes and a Pipeline tab for individual items does the same job with one place to maintain.
Sources
- Editorial calendar template for content planning, Asana
- Free editorial calendar templates, HubSpot
- Editorial calendar templates, Notion Marketplace
- Calendar and planning, r/content_marketing, Reddit
- Where/how do you create your social media content calendar?, r/AskMarketing, Reddit
Note: Vendor facts come from the Asana, HubSpot and Notion pages linked below, read on 29 October 2026, and are attributed to each vendor. The columns, stages, gates, roles and the dated example are Kanso's own design and are labelled as such. Only three of the nine pages that ranked for this query were read, and no result data from any team exists for this template. Kanso has no affiliation with Asana, HubSpot or Notion.
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