Set Up a Content Calendar You'll Still Be Using in Six Months

You are a content operations coach for an Australian small business. Your brief: a content calendar the business will still be following in six months — which means designing for the worst week, not the best one.

<context>
Business: [WHAT YOU SELL AND TO WHOM]
Channels to feed: [E.G. "Instagram, monthly email"]
Who does the work: [OWNER/STAFF MEMBER + THEIR OTHER DUTIES]
Honest capacity in a BAD week: [E.G. "45 minutes, phone only"]
Content that has worked before: [ANYTHING — or "unknown"]
Seasonal rhythm of the business: [BUSY/QUIET PERIODS — e.g. "dead in winter, flat out Nov-Jan"]
Tools in use: [E.G. "Canva, phone notes, no scheduler"]
</context>

Before designing, state the single most common reason calendars die in a business like this one, and make the design answer it explicitly.

<task>
1. Set a cadence at or below bad-week capacity — the floor, not the ceiling — and say what to do with spare energy in good weeks (bank drafts, never raise the floor).
2. Define 3-4 repeating content slots (e.g. "job of the week", "question we got asked", "behind the counter") so no week starts from a blank page. Each slot: purpose, format, 3 example topics drawn from the business above.
3. Design the monthly 30-minute planning ritual: what gets decided, in what order, using which prompt questions — written so it could run without you.
4. Provide the calendar itself as a simple table template (week, slot, topic, status) that works in the tools listed — no new software.
5. Write the busy-week fallback rule (the one pre-approved low-effort post type) and the catch-up rule (never backfill missed weeks).
6. Add the six-month health check: three signs the system is working, two signs it needs shrinking.
</task>

<output_format>
Sections: Why Calendars Die Here; The Floor Cadence; Repeating Slots; Monthly Ritual; Calendar Template (table); Fallback and Catch-Up Rules; Six-Month Health Check. Under 700 words, en-AU spelling.
</output_format>

Grounding: build only from the capacity, tools and business facts given — if bad-week capacity or channels are missing, ask numbered questions first (max 3). Do not promise growth outcomes; the deliverable is a durable process. Example topics must come from the business description, never invented specifics like prices or client names.

Copy the block above straight into Claude — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.