How to Plan Podcasts in Google Sheets and Excel Guide

If you host or produce a podcast, you already know the truth: recording is the fun part. The grind lives in spreadsheets—figuring out what’s next, who’s booked, what’s late, and where all the links live. A good editorial calendar, plus the right AI agent, turns that mess into a calm, visible system you barely have to touch.

1. Build a Simple Calendar in Google Sheets (Manual)

1. Create a new Sheet and name it “Podcast Editorial Calendar”.
2. Add columns like: Episode #, Title, Theme, Guest, Status, Recording Date, Release Date, Channel Links, Notes.
3. Use Data > Data validation to create dropdown lists for Status (Idea, Outlined, Recording, Editing, Scheduled, Live).
4. Freeze the header row so it stays in view.
5. Add color-coding: green for Live, yellow for In Progress, red for At Risk.
6. Share the Sheet with your team and give edit access only to people who truly need it.

Pros: Free, fast to set up, perfect for collaboration and remote teams. Cons: Easy to break with accidental edits; repetitive updates get annoying fast.

2. Mirror or Deepen the Calendar in Excel (Manual)

1. Open Excel and recreate the same columns as your Google Sheet.
2. Turn the range into a Table (Ctrl/Cmd + T) for easier filtering and styling.
3. Add extra planning fields if you want: Estimated Duration, Series, Priority, Promotion Assets Created (Yes/No).
4. Use Conditional Formatting to highlight overdue Recording or Release Dates.
5. If you track performance, add another sheet for downloads, listens, and conversion metrics and link them by Episode #.

Pros: Great for advanced analysis, offline planning, and management reports. Cons: Harder to collaborate live; you’ll often end up emailing files around.

3. Keep Google Sheets and Excel in Sync (Manual Option)

1. Choose your “source of truth” (usually Google Sheets for collaboration).
2. On a regular cadence (weekly or monthly), export Sheets as CSV and open it in Excel.
3. Or, copy the table from Excel back into Sheets when you’ve run analyses.
4. Use consistent column names in both tools so copy/paste remains painless.

Pros: No extra tools needed; keeps everyone loosely aligned. Cons: Boring, error-prone, and always a step behind real life.

4. Introduce an AI Agent as Your Calendar Operator

This is where Simular’s computer-use agents shine. Instead of you shuffling rows and dates, the agent behaves like a tireless assistant sitting at your laptop.

At a high level, your Simular agent can:

• Open Google Sheets and Excel on your desktop.
• Read your existing podcast calendar structure.
• Add or update rows when you provide new episode ideas or guest confirmations.
• Move Status values as episodes move from Idea → Live.
• Sync changes between Sheets and Excel on a schedule.

Because Simular Pro agents operate across the full desktop, browser, and cloud environment, they can also pull context from email, CRMs, or docs while they update your calendar.

5. Set Up the Workflow With Simular

1. Define your playbook. In plain language, write the steps you normally take: “When a new episode is approved, add a row, fill Title, Guest, target Release Date, set Status to Outlined.”
2. Install and configure Simular Pro. Run it on your Mac, grant access to the apps you use (browser, Google Sheets, Excel, calendar, email, etc.).
3. Demonstrate the process once. Let the agent watch as you open your Sheet, duplicate a row, update fields, and adjust dates. Simular’s neuro‑symbolic approach turns that demonstration into a robust routine.
4. Review the transparent execution. Every step the agent takes is logged and visible. Before you trust it with the whole calendar, inspect what it did and tweak your instructions.

Pros: Offloads the repetitive, click-heavy work; scales to hundreds of episodes and tasks; you stay in control by reviewing the agent’s actions. Cons: Requires an initial setup session and some experimentation to dial in your exact workflow.

6. Automate at Scale

Once you’re happy with the flow, you can:

• Trigger the agent via a webhook when a new idea is approved in your CRM.
• Schedule it to run daily and clean up statuses, nudge overdue recordings, and prep next week’s lineup.
• Have it scrape guest details from LinkedIn or your website and drop them into the right row in Google Sheets and Excel.

Over time, your podcast calendar stops being another spreadsheet you dread opening. It becomes a living system, maintained by an AI assistant that works exactly the way you’ve shown it—leaving you free to focus on sharper questions, better conversations, and bolder shows.