The lawn was eerie. Long strands of spider web draped over its length, a bat hovering over the withering shrubs, and a gravestone poking up from the dried grass.

The scariest thing was, it was a full month before Halloween!

As you can guess, I’m not a big fan of Halloween in September, or Christmas in October, or back-to-school in July. But you should be-when you’re filling in your communications calendar.

Creating a good message takes time. For that article you want to write or that video you want to record, you may need to find facts, or set up a photo shoot.  You may need to interview someone. How long will it take to schedule that meeting? You don’t want to do any of that at the last minute.

Schedule that message weeks or even months in advance. Then schedule the steps it will take to create that message.

Your audience needs time to respond, too.

Have you ever received an invitation to attend an event the day after you were supposed to RSVP?

If your message is inviting people to attend an event, “call your member of Congress TODAY!,” or anything else with a deadline, you need to send it to them well in advance.

That means you have to start creating the message even earlier, and send it out more often.

Yes, you can wait until the last minute to create your message and hope inspiration strikes. Yes, you can gamble that your supporters will drop everything to respond to your call to action.

But that’s like Halloween in September. It’s just…scary.