Do you floss daily? Eat your vegetables? Work out?

Here's another: Do you plan before you write?

We know that these things are good for us.Whether we do them is less certain.

Just like dental care, healthy diet, and exercise, good planning will save you in the long run. The idea is to separate thinking from writing, for to do two things at once is to do both badly.

Most writers start by assembling details, examples, and comments in paragraphs—sporadically making points, rarely conveying a message. Our approach is to do the reverse—to start with your messages, to support them with points, and to use those points to assemble your details, examples, and comments.

We suggest that you begin by answering a few basic questions about your topic, audience, and purpose. Next, come up with your main message and three or four supporting messages. Then use those messages to develop an outline, and move beyond that to formulate a detailed paragraph-by-paragraph plan for your first draft.

That may seem simple, but doing it well takes practice. Take, for example, a planning session we held for an international financial organization’s flagship report. We started with a simple question.

Who’s your audience?

The answers dribbled out. First: “government officials.” After a pause: “people in the development community more broadly. And then a flood: “The press, graduate students, those in nongovernmental organizations, the public.”

In just a few sentences, the audience mushroomed to 6 billion people, too large to help with planning.

So the key isn’t just asking the right questions. It’s also knowing the answers to look for. Our techniques show you how to go beyond the simple outlining you learned in school with powerful planning tools, useful for whatever your field and whomever your audience.

For more information, visit our online writing training page.