Do You Really Need to Plan Everything You Write?
Here’s a framework for how you should think about your next blog post
I’ve thought about this question long and hard. And in all honesty, my current conclusion rests on 2 simple words I know you’ll love: “it depends”.
That’s right, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ template that can be used every single time you write a new blog post.
But it’s nonetheless important to understand what purpose having a plan truly serves.
In other words, before you write your next story, you need to ask yourself:
“What will planning help me accomplish?”
Do I want this story to be a therapeutic splurge of thoughts, or do I just want to write a piece that is well researched and factually evidenced?
Both can work. But both can fail if they lack the right sort of preparation.
Spending a moment to think about your story will help you solve the mystery around planning.
There are a couple of tricks that have started to help me. But first, let’s discuss what you don’t want to do.
Common Mistake to Planning #1
It’s important to have a plan before you write, even if that plan is simply saying to yourself that you don’t need one.
But what you don’t want to do is start a story and then realise you should have jotted down a few points before you began.
I made this mistake when I first started writing.
And as a result, I wasted hours re-writing and re-wording my articles until I felt I found some sort of structure.
Let’s just say this was a steep learning curve.
Common Mistake to Planning #2
Next, I did a full 180. I forbid myself from writing until my story was perfectly planned to the tee.
My thinking was this: if my plan was perfect, then my story would be perfect. And if my story was perfect, then I could dispel the myth that there is no such thing as a perfect story.
I was naïve to even think that. Everybody is right when they tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect story.
But I’d like to extend this further and stress that there is no such thing as a perfect plan.
Maybe I took the idea of planning to the next level. But if I made this mistake, then the chances are you’ve probably done so too.
A Framework That Might Help
The way I see it, each story will more or less fit into one of two categories, with a third being available for those that share the characteristics of both.
Keeping this framework in mind might help you determine how best to approach the planning stages of writing a fresh blog post.
#1: Stories That Require You to Learn More Before You Write
The amazing thing about blogging is that you can choose to write about whatever you want. Literally, anything. And you can learn new ideas as you write too.
But the inherent freedom this brings also gives rise to its own set of challenges.
Let’s take my recent post about interesting quotes from Warren Buffett as an example.
I’m passionate about finance & investing. And I love listening to Warren Buffett speak. I figured a story based on some of his famous life quotes might be fun to write about, giving me an opportunity to learn from his wealth of knowledge.
But to do so, I had to spend time researching what he said. Then I had to determine which quotes would be a good fit. Next, I had to order his words of wisdom to provide a sense of flow to my story. Only then could I think about what the key messages should be.
This all took about 30 minutes. And I hadn’t even started writing yet.
While this felt like a lot of time to spare, there’s simply no way I could have written this piece without investing a good amount of time upfront.
That’s just the nature of the beast. Some stories will require a bit more preparation than others. It’s important to recognise which ones these are before you sit down to write them.
#2: Stories That Are Based on Your Own Personal Experiences
On the other side of the spectrum, there are those stories that require very little planning.
These are the ones that are often based on your own experiences. Writing these posts can be extremely satisfying — you feel like your past is reborn onto a piece of paper.
I still find it useful to jot down a few ideas before I write these sorts of posts. This ensures I stay on track while giving me a moment to re-jig my memory. But by no means do I need to fill sheets and sheets of A4 with scribbles, flow diagrams, or bullet points.
An example of this type of post is based on a recollection of thoughts from 9th grade.
I don’t think I’ve ever written a story as quickly as I wrote this one. Sure, it took me a bit of time to edit, but I found myself in a wonderful state of flow when I was writing this.
Often having no plan, and knowing that you don’t always need one can be a perfectly acceptable approach for the right sort of story.
What About Those Stories That Sit Somewhere in the Middle?
And then there are some stories that fall in neither camp.
You don’t really learn anything new from writing them, nor do you find that you can begin typing straight away.
This just so happens to be one of them.
To write this very story, I spent about 5–10 minutes figuring out what I wanted to say. I needed to take a moment to reflect on how I’ve approached some of my blog posts in the past. But by no means did I spend hours thinking about this.
And that’s totally fine too. Not everything you write needs to be meticulously thought through in advance. Nor do you always need to be re-living your past on paper.
In Conclusion
The bottom line is this: there is no right answer to the question, “How much planning should you do before you write?”
Again, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ template that can be used every single time. You need to be flexible with how you spend your time before you start typing.
Every story is different. And so too is every plan. There is no one formula for what will work and what won’t.
If having a plan will help, then by all means, put one together. If it will distract you from the emotions you want to convey when you write, scrap it.
But just know that you scrapped it because it wasn’t part of the plan.
