Part 1bis: Daily Planning

We’ve devised a strategy we share with all new interns for planning their day efficiently, getting through their work effectively, and keeping us updated as they go!

Let’s walk through what this involves.

1. Using Trello to plan your day

We’ve already discovered how awesome Trello makes planning, and we’d like interns to be using this! We’ll set up a board for each intern (internal team) and we’ll invite all the necessary people (Hannah, Judy, and each of you!).

2. Schedule for each day

As we’re hoping to reinvent how we approach the Coordinator Extraordinaire’s role, it may come to the point that different people are responsible for different processes on different days (inbox, allocations etc). So, more than ever we need to be sure all the pieces are fitting together in our daily processes!

To do this, we’ve developed a standard schedule for internal team members. Please remember to follow these new processes as others will be relying on you.

It’s also important to compile your daily report as you go. As an internal team member, this will go into the Slack channel #internalteam. You might like to write this in a Word document or email draft so it can be copied & pasted directly into the channel at the end of the day. (Any editing, formatting or writing will go into #dailyreport).

Everyday:

1. 9.00-9.45am

Open up Trello, the info inbox and Slack.

• Label the inbox.
• As you find emails about work that has been completed, or new submissions:
  • Download files (new articles and images) and put these into Dropbox > Content > Submissions > [Make a new folder: Author Name – MONTH]
  • Update the Editorial Schedule in Trello to reflect this.
• Message #internalteam to say this stage has been completed.

2. 9.45am – 10.00am

Using the board ‘Writer team & content planning’ (or the spreadsheet found in Dropbox > Administration > HR > All team members), figure out which editor is to be allocated to the newly submitted content.

• Add them as a ‘member’ to the card.
• Move the card from ‘Submitted – to allocate’ to ‘Allocated for sub-editing’.
• Send the editor a message in #editingteam in Slack: tag their name (eg @hannah) and link them to the Trello card.

3. 10.00am – 10.10am

Check #contentideas in Slack, and check that all new ideas that have been posted in this channel have their own card in ‘Content ideas’ in Trello. Make the topic/focus the title, add a label for the category, and then any comments and links to the description.

Check the #submissions channel in Slack for any new submissions since the previous morning. Add these to Dropbox and Trello as for an email submission (above).

4. 10.10-11.00am

Writing drafts in the inbox.

• Please use the ‘drafts’ list in your Trello to-do board if you need.
• Start with the most difficult emails, then progress to the next most urgent, then tackle all others.
• When all drafts are done, message #internalteam to let us know this stage has been completed.
• A list of all drafts will be sent in your internal team daily report.

5. 11.00am – 12.00pm

Publishing, social media, emails

• Check Trello for what is to be published that day.
• Publish
• Schedule social media, message us in Slack #socialmedia to say that posts are ready in Buffer for her review.
• Draft congrats emails, and add these to your list of drafts.
• Message #internalteam to say this stage has been completed.

6. For the rest of the afternoon

Other projects (eg social media), and…

Editing:

• Update your card in Trello with the completed sub-edit/format/edit
• Draft a feedback email to the relevant editor/writer in info, message #inbox to let us know it’s there.
• Include this in your daily report (in #dailyreport).

7. Go back to the inbox

Go back to the inbox and clean the emails. Write drafts for any emails that still need a reply.

8. End of day

a. Daily report – on any writing, editing or projects completed.

• Send in #dailyreport on Slack.

b. Internal report – send us a report on the daily schedule.

• Send in #internalteam on Slack.
• Include: list of draft emails, articles published, content submitted, content allocated.

It’s very important that you stick to this process. We’ll tell you if you’ll need to deviate – it’s important we’re confident that all team members are experts at each of these processes, and at managing their day as a whole before we allow any flexibility here.

3. Messaging/update protocols

As you’ll notice, at the end of each section we’ve added the following: “Message #internalteam to say this stage has been completed.”

We’ve set up a Slack channel to which you’ve been invited, where we’d like you to update us at each stage of the process. If you’re taking longer than the plan allows please let us know and explain why, in case we can help you somehow!

4. Daily report

It’s also important that you send through a comprehensive update of what has happened for each day you work. List tasks under each heading, sorted by what has been done, and what is yet to be finished.

Alors, there’s a lot to take on here, but please re-read carefully and slowly and let us know if you have any questions.