How to Make a Writing Schedule
If you are a professional freelance writer, you must prepare a writing schedule in order to keep the lists of all the tasks and their related information intact. It doesn’t only help you in keeping a record of all the work but also assists in completing the assignments and projects well on time in order to meet your goals and objectives. Making a writing schedule is not difficult. All you need is a little time to follow a basic procedure in Microsoft Excel.
Things Required:
– Computer with Microsoft Excel
Instructions
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1
First of all, you have to open Microsoft Excel in your computer. Click on start button to open all the programs and click on Microsoft Office. From the list of programs, click on Microsoft Excel. You will see a blank wordbook. Usually, Excel shows three sheets (tabs) which you can see at the left bottom corner. You can easily add the sheets by clicking on the button next to the Sheet 3. You will require nine more sheets in order to prepare your writing schedule.
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2
Rename the sheets with the months, weeks or days (for which you are looking forward to prepare the schedule). For instance, you can rename ‘Sheet 1’ with ‘January’, ‘Sheet 2’ with ‘February’ and so on.
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3
Now, you have to make columns in each sheet. Just open one sheet and type Publication, Article Title, Editor, Deadline, Date Sent, Reply Received, Tasks, Payment and Comments. You can add any other field if you want. Then, copy the headings of all the fields and paste them in all the sheets. In order to make your columns more prominent, you can make the headings bold or you can increase the font size.
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4
After that, you have to fill all the cells with the necessary information. It is not compulsory to write all the details in the cells. In fact, it will be better for you to use short names of publications and other columns in order to keep your writing schedule concise. For example, if name of publication is ‘South-West Frontier Publications’, you can simple use the initials ‘SWFP’. However, don’t forget to write all the abbreviations in a separate document so as to take assistance at a time of need.
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5
In the end, just save your excel file by giving it an appropriate name e.g. My Writing Schedule.
