2014 Blogging Calendar | Menu Planner

One of my most important new year resolutions is to plan everything and be more organized with my cooking and blogging. So I decided to make myself a menu planner cum calendar that’ll help me plan my dishes, keep track of my blogging assignments and generally be more efficient. And I made this blogging/cooking calendar. I am no great printable girl. I am terrible at matching colours and designing stuff. This isn’t pinterest stuff but it is practical and convenient. I have a PDF version for those who like to print things out and write in with a pen. I am the writing kind at times. I also have an Excel soft copy of the calendar for the excel fans out there. I am an MS Excel fan. I open up an Excel spreadsheet for the smallest calculation, for making my grocery list, for my blogging schedules and for just about everything. I like my information in neat rows and columns, it’s much easier to read and assimilate and just as easy to manipulate too (sort, remove duplicates etc).

The PDF version and the excel version of the planner can both be downloaded using the buttons at the bottom of this post.

I’ve divvied up each day into – breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and specials, the way I think about each day. Stuff that you’re making ahead of time, blogging specific dishes that don’t fit into the meal routine can go into the “Specials” category.

There’s a notes column at the right side for jotting down prep steps (soaking beans the previous night), shopping lists (just when I am about to start baking something, I realize I’ve run out of butter or flour), cleaning/organizing tasks and whatever else you need to keep track of.

I’ve made it a point to highlight all important blogging dates in the year – Diwali, Krishna Jayanthi, Eid, Halloween, Navratri and more so that bloggers can plan and prepare for these festivals. I totally missed out on these last year. I knew Ganesh Chaturthi was around the corner when Kozhukattais and modaks were flooding the blogosphere last year and I didn’t even have a plan. Ganesh Chaturthi is Aug-29 this year. I’ll make the kozhukattai during Aadi, and the Aadi Maasam specials in May, pickles and vathals in April..

This menu planner would be a great tool for any mom/homemaker and not just a food blogger. Forgotten, un-discovered leftovers are common at our house. With this written record, it’ll be a lot easier to recycle/incorporate leftovers into the next days’ menus.

The calendar would double up as a great diet journal for people watching their diet. You could jot down what you had each meal, each day and you’ll eventually find out that the hotel sambar gives you heartburn and CCD sandwiches upset your stomach.

You can download the calendars using the links below. Happy Cooking!

2014 Blogging Calendar - PDF Version

2014 Blogging Calendar - Excel Version