I have a bad habit of spending the last days of December bemoaning the goals that I didn’t reach in the year. I even wrote a haiku about it!

Yes, even in 2020 — the most unusual year we’ve collectively been through.

I questioned why I didn’t write a book, or completely declutter my office, or launch a whole slew of new programs as Covid shrank our worlds to super-focused proportions. (There was one new program, but one does not a slew make.)

Even things that normally work like clockwork for me — content creation and reaching out to my people on a regular, planned basis — became more of a challenge and required re-consideration:

1. Are those scheduled social posts that sounded great in January going to sound ridiculous in May?
   Answer: Yes, and they were replaced with something more in touch with the times.

2. Are my clients still struggling with messaging?
   Answer: Yes, especially those that had drastically different messages to share.

3. WIth all that’s going on in the world, the uncertainty and the heavy, heavy energy, should I even bother to keep talking about what my business does to help small business owners?
   Answer: Yes. Yes for me. Yes for you. If we’re making a difference for someone, we need to keep saying it, even if the message is contained and the audience is small.

I suspect you may have wrestled with some version of those questions as well.

That’s when I really saw the value of my content plan. Yes, some of the posts shifted from what I had originally laid out in January, but my framework was still valid and gave me the structure I needed to make changing it easier.

The core messages I was drawing from only needed to be tweaked not scrapped. My belief that you don’t have to spread yourself across a million channels was strengthened— I will never have the time or inclination to add to the noise. There was so much noise in 2020.

In the end, I still planned each month’s content — but only a month at a time and with a new lens to focus even more how messages were going to land during a pandemic, during social upheaval, during wildfires and hurricanes, during a contentious national election, during holidays turned on their heads.

Those changes are now built into my re-imagined Build Your Content Plan Workshop, scheduled for January 27 and February 17.

It's a two-hour, hands-on, get-the-guidance, brainstorm-with-others session that will define your content plan for the next month or so. You can start 2021 with an intentional and strategic plan for reaching out to your people.

I can’t promise you won’t have to make tweaks along the way, but you will have a foundation that can make those tweaks easier.

You can get the details here or drop a comment below with your questions. But don’t ponder too long. I limit the number of seats available in each session to keep this a true working session.

For me, my content plan is going to be an essential element of making 2021 The Year of the Word.

“Well Said Wednesday” is a blog by Barbara Govednik, Founder, Content Coach & Message Strategist of 4.23 Communication. It’s published every other Wednesday…ish.