Beginning a passion project, it’s fun to anticipate which parts of your work you’ll derive the greatest learning from. As the journey unfolds, you may realize that someone of the most meaningful insights come from unexpected places. 

The past few weeks of content planning and creating for my project, Moment in Matchbook, have been rewarding for many reasons. 

• First, I officially have two weeks’ worth of content under my belt and another ready for publishing. 
• Second, this campaign has allowed me to reconnect with those I’ve lost touch with over the years but who now are excited to see me grow in this exploration. 
• Lastly, I’ve unearthed surprising strategies that have helped me to not only stay on track, but also envision a more complete idea of my creative process. I’d love to tell you about these findings. 

My Content Calendar 

While it may seem simple, using a calendar to track my content has been central to my project organization. This, and my Trello board, have saved me on countless occasions when I start getting overwhelmed with my workload or generating content ideas. 

Christina Newberry discusses these benefits in her Hootsuite article, noting that “a social media calendar lets you plan ahead, batch your work, avoid multitasking, and note down all your content ideas for later” (2024). This level of organization allows you more time for strategic work, which I’ve been able to enjoy lots of thanks to my calendar. You can see the first two weeks of my calendar below: 

My Platform Mockups 

A social media campaign can span weeks if not months. For optimal visualization of your content over time, mockups are highly recommended. In his Planable article, Marco Giuliani highlights the key purpose of mockups in the planning and creation phases, stating that “you can easily preview what your work looks like, make small tweaks or large-scale changes anytime and work on your design before presenting it…” (2024). 

I use mockups to preview the main feeds of my Instagram and Pinterest accounts, allowing me to visualize how my scheduled content will appear alongside previous posts and make adjustments as needed. Below are this week’s mockups, featuring posts one through nine. 

My Production Journal 

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I want to reemphasize the value of my production journals, where I document everything I’ve worked on each week. This practice, along with the other strategies I’ve shared in this post, has significantly increased my confidence in managing my time effectively. If you’d like to dive deeper into my experience with production journaling, you can read more about it here. 

Week 3 Content & Some Final Thoughts 

To wrap up, I’ll share a post from this week’s content which explores the process of designing matchbook covers. 

As I look back on the past few weeks of Moment in Matchbook, I’m struck by how some of the most important lessons I’ve learned have come from the least expected places. My content calendar, platform mockups, and production journal all play key roles in keeping me organized and inspired, transforming what started as a simple project about matchbooks into a journey of growth. 

Whether you’re just beginning your own passion project or are deep in the process, I hope these insights encourage you to embrace the unexpected. Thanks for following along with Moment in Matchbook – I can’t wait to share more! 

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Works Cited 

Giuliani, M. (2024, April 7). Social media mockups – an easy way to automate social posts mockups. Planable. https://planable.io/blog/social-media-mockups/#:~:text=With%20an%20online%20social%20media,to%20existing%20or%20potential%20customers. 

Newberry, C. (2024, July 26). How to build a social media calendar: 4 steps + free template. Hootsuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-content-calendar/#8_benefits_of_using_a_social_media_calendar