Do You Plan Before Writing Blog Posts?

Do you plan before writing blog posts? 

Or do you just plan the title and write the article sometime later?

Or do you write and plan at the same time?

What's the difference?

Simple, but complex. Different times, different thinking. When I usually get article ideas, I write them down in my blogging ideas diary (I just ran out of pages yesterday, so from now, I will be using just filler paper to write my ideas down) and then write the article when I actually want to publish it (I don't write early, nor do I think about the post body until I start to write the article). So every single word that you are reading now, is what I came up with just now (now as in the time of writing this article :D).

Do you do that? Do you know why I do that? Well, I wrote this post just to explain that. I will give you all the reasons (good and bad) that I can find for planning articles earlier and for writing at the moment.

Planning  Before Writing blog posts?

A lot of bloggers I know, do this kind of stuff. They plan their post body. They plan what the post is going to be about, the post format, how long the post is going to be and so forth. And they jot all this down. And write the post based on their notes (well, I guessed those last two points).

I have tried writing blog posts by planning the content even before I start to write. But, it doesn't work for me. Because the problem is that, If I think of some ideas for the post body, then I will be restricted to thinking within those ideas (It is hard for me to think out of those ideas). So, I usually don't try to plan my post body before I start writing blog posts.

Obviously, I understand that there are problems with this method. All of our college/high school professors/teachers tell us to plan our essay even before writing them (The only time I actually do some planning for writing is when I write essays for college). Planning and writing blog posts helps us to get our ideas out and then analyze, elaborate and explain them to convey our message, pursue the audience or just for the sake of writing.

Planning and writing blog posts blocks creativity?

I understand that for some people, it is just better to plan everything out and then start writing blog posts. But let me tell you something: It will be harder for you to come up with new ideas for the post if you already plan out everything 😀 Planning in a way, blocks your creative side of writing. Yes, you will still get ideas while writing the post, but it will be much harder to get those ideas and blend them into what you have planned.

But, that might not be the case for everyone. I do know people who write great articles by planning them ahead. I might saying that there will be a compromise for quality if you plan earlier. I am just saying that once you plan out everything, it will be much harder to get out of those points, think out of them, and get new ideas (Well, I will just use my psychology knowledge to support it; The idea of Fixation by Freud. You will have more like a fixated perspective on the subject that you are writing on. See, its all about perspective 😀 (Note: By the way, I will be writing another blog post on perspectives, somewhere on the blog world, just keep a look on my Twitter account).

Brainstorming and Writing blog posts at the Same time?

I just love writing blog posts. Just keep on writing them. In fact, I rarely change any word from the articles that I write (unless of course there is a spelling error). This is because I just love the posts as they are. If I even try to change one sentence, then my mind would prompt me to change the entire paragraph or add something new to it (which I don't really like, provided that I have finished writing the article).

For me, brainstorming and writing blog posts at the same time has proved to be effective. The best articles that I have written so far, are all posts written without any planning on the post content (and all of them were guest articles – I don't think that is a wonder at all). Anyways, back to our topic. I will give you an example to illustrate my thoughts:

Think about this: An artist who draws non-representational art doesn't really plan or think about his art before he draws it. Because he really can't. If his idea for art is really non representational, then he can't compare the idea to anything that is existing in this world (if he could, then the art would be representational). As far as I understand, he would just draw out his idea, play with it and use his creativity and artistic skill to improve the piece.

For me, I get more and better ideas when I write and brainstorm at the same time. What about you? Have you ever tried doing it at the same time? If not, you should try it. Try it once or twice. And let me know what you think.

Ta Da!

At the end, I just want to ask you a question (Just curious :D): Do you publish articles that you are not satisfied with? When I write articles, I only publish those I am entirely satisfied with (or else I won't have the motivation to promote it to my friends and ask them their opinion). Anyways, don't forget to tell you what you think about the idea(s) presented in this article. Try them out.

I appreciate your time and effort spent on reading this article. I would also appreciate if you really help me out by sharing and commenting on this article (For those people who didn't like this article: just tell me why you didn't. Thanks a million!

Just  write.