Some people are natural-born planners, while others prefer to take it moment by moment. I happen to be a planner, so I want to share with you five strategies that I use to plan my content.
Whether you like to plan ahead or not, read through these planning strategies and try them out. Content planning doesn’t look the same for everyone, but it can save you tons of time writing and editing later on.
1. The Brain Dump
Often, the first step in planning is to get everything that’s floating in your head down on paper (or typed neatly). This strategy involves taking a blank page and jotting down everything that comes to mind about your content idea, whether it’s a video, blog post, series, podcast, or something else.
This strategy is great when you need to generate ideas fast, or you have a lot of ideas or goals already in mind. It’s not great for parsing through the specifics or filling in detailed information.
Benefits of this strategy:
- You get a lot done, fast.
- You give yourself space to let go of judgment. No idea is too big, small, or stupid.
- It energizes you and gives you a fresh perspective on your work.
- At the end, you have a list of potential avenues. All you have to do is pull out what you want and plot your next steps.
Downsides to this strategy:
- It often feels more productive than it is. Make sure to balance “idea time” with actual work towards your goals.
- A list of ideas doesn’t mean anything on its own—it’s up to you to figure out what’s next.
2. Research Smarter, Not Harder
What starts as a simple question while you’re writing can so easily turn into six hours of research as you wade deeper into the black hole that is the Internet. For me, the problem is often that I want my work to be perfect, so I think I need to become an expert and know everything about what I’m working on. But that’s not a very healthy way to live, and it’s a great way to never press Publish on your work.
You don’t need to spend hours researching your field. Don’t scare yourself away by calling it “market research” and insisting that you need spreadsheets and cited sources in order to be competent.
All you need are a few free online resources like Answer the Public, Reddit, and Quora. These resources are a gold mine of real questions from people about your subject. And if you already have content out there, you likely have access to analytics that give you a lot of information about what gets the most positive responses from your audience.
This strategy involves scheduling time-boxed research sessions where your only job is to venture out of your little world and see what people are asking and saying about your field, your product, or your competitors. It’s great when you feel stuck and want to make sure that you’re creating content that resonates with your audience. It’s not great for when you’re just getting started or you don’t know what exactly you’re doing yet.
Benefits of this strategy:
- You get to dive into how your audience thinks and feels, which can help you make positive changes to your content.
- It takes you out of your head, your drafts, and your own ideas for a while.
- You can get some great recommendations for books, blogs, and other content related to your work.
- It can jog your imagination for topics and products that you might be able to make.
- It reminds you why you’re doing what you’re doing. There are real people on the other side of the screen who need your help.
Downsides to this strategy:
- You need to know exactly what you’re looking for. If you don’t, you might leave with only a shallow knowledge of a few subjects instead of deep knowledge of one subject. Or, you might spend a bunch of time researching something only to narrow your niche or change direction entirely later on.
- It can be a time suck. Hence the “time-boxed” part of my suggestion.
- It can take you away from your actual work. Make sure you’re using this as a tool to supplement your work.
3. Working Backwards from the Takeaway
The advice I see given to creators all the time is “Create what you would want to consume.” The point of this advice isn’t that your preferences are more important than anyone else’s. It’s that this advice puts you in the place of your audience.
While creating something is an incredibly transformative experience for the creator, what you create should ultimately offer some kind of transformation for the audience, too. That transformation can be literal (“At the end of this article, you’ll know where to find clients as a freelance designer”) or something else of value, such as insider or expert knowledge, instructions, advice, or entertainment.
This strategy involves coming up with a clear takeaway or transformation for your audience, then working backwards to plot the journey your audience will take to get to that epiphany. It’s great when you want to focus on your value as a creator, and you’re focused on making something useful or worth selling. It’s not great for coming up with topics to write about, getting a lot of content done quickly, or trying to learn new information about your audience.
Benefits of this strategy:
- You get a clear view of the true value behind your work.
- Value = loyalty. If you can consistently provide tangible value, you’re more likely to build your audience and sell your own products like online courses or ebooks.
- You know that the content your create from this plan will be useful. You won’t spend time trying to shape a hopeless draft into something valuable, since you’re starting with the value and journey to the epiphany in mind.
Downsides to this strategy:
- You have to really know your audience and understand their pain points. If you don’t know what they’re struggling with, you can’t help them to the other side.
- It’s time-intensive. You won’t get to plan out a handful of posts at once.
4. The Bullet Outline
As soon as I have a few pieces of content that I want to focus on, I like to do a quick bullet list outline of what to cover. These bullet points can be sections I want to include, information that I want to call out, or bits of phrases that pop into my head.
For some content, this outline is sufficient. For example, when I’m filming a video for one of my YouTube channels and I want it to be a little more free-flowing, I’ll use a bullet outline to guide my thoughts instead of a formal script. It helps me make sure that I cover everything I want to cover despite the number of tangents I may get pulled to as I talk. For everything else, this bullet outline gives me a huge head start when I want to make a full outline or jump right into my draft.
This strategy is great for working through a bunch of content ideas quickly. It’s also great for trying out some ideas that you’re not sure about, so you don’t sink too much time into something that won’t stick. It’s not great for getting a full picture of your content or planning the structure of your content.
Benefits of this strategy:
- You can test out content ideas without spending too much time on them.
- You can jot down what floats into your head while the inspiration is hot.
- You aren’t starting from zero when you go to make a full outline or draft of your content.
- You can think through lots of content ideas very quickly.
Downsides to this strategy:
- It’s not detailed. You might lose some of your thoughts about your ideas after you walk away.
- You need to know when to stop working on one idea and move onto the next one. This strategy can turn into writing a full outline or draft if you get too sucked into any one idea.
5. The Full Outline
Some content requires a bit more fleshing out before you completely dive in, like an article, blog post, or book. A full outline is the perfect way to figure out how you want everything to be organized before you invest hours into writing.
For example, let’s say you write a book and figure out its order and structure as you go. (This kind of writer is called a “pantser” in the fiction world, because they’re flying by the seat of their pants). You might get tens of thousands of words into the project before you realize that the way you’ve written it doesn’t make sense for what you’re trying to say. Or maybe it just wasn’t a substantial idea to begin with. A lot of that agony can be avoided with an outline.
What I love about outlines is that they can be as detailed as you want them to be. But, I think every full outline has these elements:
- The title and subtitle
- The takeaway of the content
- Headings and subheadings
- A sentence or two describing what each section is about
Similar to the bullet list outline, I sometimes include snippets or words that pop into my head as I describe each section. Anything that will help me write faster when the time comes is fair game.
This strategy is great for diving into your content and getting the full picture of the final product in mind before you dive in. It’s not great for putting down detailed information or making progress on your drafts. It’s also not great for working on multiple ideas at once.
Benefits of this strategy:
- You get a high-level view of your content and what you want to accomplish.
- You answer the big questions upfront, so you can jump into the draft knowing that you’ve thought through your idea.
- You create the structure for your content upfront, so you can think less later.
- The outline can become a sort of template that you then just have to fill in. You use much less mental energy during the actual writing process.
Downsides to this strategy:
- You have to focus on only one idea while you write your outline. It’s difficult to juggle multiple outlines at once if you ever want to get to the actual work.
- It can block you from getting the draft done. Budget extra time if you’re going to start with a full outline.
- Some lessons are best learned by jumping in and failing. You can’t always see potential problems from above, so even the best-planned outline might not save you from rewrites and do-overs.
Planning is an Investment
Content planning doesn’t always mean checking off every box before you start. It’s simply a way to weed through your ideas and get some of the high-level thinking out of the way upfront. Content planning is the best investment you can make in your work because it helps ensure that your time spent working is worthwhile and fruitful.
Whatever level of detail you choose, the time you spend with your ideas can pay you back in saved writing and editing time later on. So give it a shot! I recommend scheduling some planning time in your calendar so you can figure out the best strategy for you.