With your yearbook ladder complete, it is time to create a deadline structure and submission schedule. This structure will help give your team a view of the “big picture” and all-important timelines for each page.

Deadlines

Before assigning any deadlines to any pages, you must determine your delivery date. By consulting with your School Admin, Advisor and Yearbook Consultant, settle on an appropriate delivery date. It is important never to set your delivery date on the same day as distribution day; make sure to give yourself time to receive the books, inspect them and have enough time to make any small emergency corrections if need be. Once the delivery date is set, your Print Consultant will provide you with the final page deadline to meet this delivery date.

Using the Wall Calendar provided in the Yearbook Kit, write in your delivery date as well as the final deadline provided to you by your Print Consultant. Once complete, you are set to start creating deadlines.

Check your calendars
Before looking at the yearbook calendar, look at your personal calendars. Has a vacation been booked? Do you have an anniversary coming up? Is there a religious holiday then? Check your personal calendars and make sure you highlight these days; you do not want to set a deadline during a week off or on a PD Day!

Check the school & sporting calendars
Consult the various school and sporting calendars around your school. Often these calendars can either be found with your Admins, Sporting Directors or even on the school website. Make sure to note the following on your own planning calendar:

• Non-school days and breaks (spring break, ski week, exams, etc.)
• Special school days (compressed days, half-days, etc.)
• Dates of special events
• Sports team seasons
• Special sporting tournaments (both on campus and away)
• Concerts, conferences, and graduation events
• Trips and anything else that happens during the school year that will be included in the yearbook

Once you have consulted with these calendars and made note of the important dates, start to break your ladder down into manageable deadlines. As a rule of thumb for most pages, each page should be due at maximum a month after the event in question has taken place.
Assign every spread in the book by deadlines. Decide which spreads will be submitted for each deadline. The book should be divided up so that staff members have a spread for each deadline, depending on the number of members you have on staff.

Making Deadlines

With spreads assigned and deadlines set, the hard part officially begins, ensuring your team hits deadlines!

The Basics
• Break down the entire book into deadlines. Make sure that each spread has a deadline and a corresponding staff member assigned to it. The book should be divided up so that staff members have a spread for each deadline, depending on the number of members you have on staff.
• Create checklists for everything. From gathering content to creating layouts, create checklists to help your staff stay organized and on-point.
• Develop mini deadlines for staff. These mini deadlines can cover a variety of items such as design elements, gathering content by a certain date, completion of a spread, etc. These deadlines should ultimately help your staff hit their larger page deadlines.
• Mark any important dates where information needs to be gathered and important pictures need to be taken.
• Highlight one-off events and activities; this means events that will not re-occur and cannot be missed at all costs.
• Schedule late nights or weekend meetings early in the year. Knowing these nights and weekends will ensure that you get maximum participation from your entire team.
• Have weekly meetings with the editors. They should know the progress that is happening for their sections and the overall book. This will allow them to make any staffing changes if need be.
• Display all deadlines in a highly visible area so everyone can see.

Motivating the Team
Keeping a team motivated can be the most difficult part of any yearbook team. Although motivation is flush as you start the year, it often can wane as you enter the “dog days” of the fall and winter term. Keeping staff members excited and enthusiastic about the yearbook is key to meeting your deadlines.

Celebrate together
• Did you hit that deadline? If so, throw a deadline celebration party!
• Have monthly birthday parties. Include half-year birthdays for those who are not in school for their days. Keep it short. It is not a day off. It is a “yea, you” moment.
• When someone does something awesome, stop class to share it.

Create a Culture
• Random Acts of Kindness monthly prize draw
• Host a Pay-It-Forward month

Milestones
• Celebrate each students' milestones
• Create charts of work completed, this shows progress and how far you have come.
• Create celebrations for the milestones achieved

Team Building – Be Creative!
• Regularly do something fun as a team to build friendship and camaraderie
o Team Scavenger Hunts: Layout vs Journalist’s
o Escape Rooms

Make yourself available!
• Keep circulating responsibilities: Editors and advisors need to be available to the staff while they are working. Editor’s responsibilities should be completed on their own time.

ABOVE ALL - LAUGH A LOT!