My Google Drive Content System and A Hidden Spreadsheet Trick

Feb 28

I love Google Drive for my content calendar system.

It allows me to access my content anywhere and everywhere. Desktop, laptop, and even my phone.

It also facilitates quick communication and feedback for joint ventures like webinars where I have a co-host. One time I was editing an outline simultaneously with my co-host and it made the whole experience FLY BY because we were able to shoot thoughts and questions at each other while writing the outline.

I primarily use docs and sheets but I often use slides (which can later be exported as a PDF workbook) and organize promo and blog images.

As you know from Map Your Content, Map Your Success, I have a HUGE content calendar master spreadsheet. This thing is open and updated on the reg.

Now I’m a spreadsheet geek and initially I found Google Sheets to be lacking and limited. Really, I just needed to think differently about how to use it and learn the platform a little bit better.

Once I took the time to play around and find the features I was looking for, I found Google Sheets to be exactly what I needed.

For many new entrepreneurs and freelancers, finding enough time in the day to do all of their marketing and work is a challenge. Systems, like content calendars, batching tasks and automations using softaware help.

But you still have to input data and information in order to use the system that helps you stay organized. This is where a lesser known feature on Google Sheets comes into play. It's a matter of setting it up once and benefitting from it every time you use your spread sheet system.

One of my FAVORITE features for timesaving in content planning is the VALIDATION feature on Google sheets.

It is always faster to click than it is to type which is why you have "like" buttons and "share" buttons where, with a click of a button, you can complete what would take several actions if it were not automated. So if you are typing the same 2-10 words (think categories, keywords, names or topics), YOU NEED TO USE THIS FEATURE.

In the Map Your Content course, we picked 3-5 categories in order to keep our content and messaging consisting. This is the perfect application for this tool. In fact, it’s what I demonstrate on the spreadsheet in this mini-clip from one of my tutorials.

Instead of writing the same 3-5 topics create a dropdown box to choose them from! That’s what the validation feature does. Not a very intuitive name for such a handy thing but here’s how you do that.

Data Validation Tutorial

Later in the video, I demonstrate how I get around one of the things that irked me most initially working in Sheets: it’s lack of ZOOM.

I use a HUGE spreadsheet to track my content, goals, analytics, etc and I could not ZOOM OUT to get an eagle eye view. The workaround for that is the “hide rows” or “hide columns” feature. The rows in particular were making me a little bonkers because I would have to scroll down 6 months worth of content to get to the current date.

Not any more. By “hiding rows” and not deleting old content, I can open my sheet to the exact date’s content!

If you liked these tips, join me this fall as we launch another round of Map Your Content, where we will plan ALL of your holiday content in advance! (Up to 2 months worth)
If you liked this tip, we are going into deeper content systems and strategies as well as providing implementation support to help you GET IT DONE!!

Sound like a dream?