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Just a few years ago, when I would set down to work on a new project—a new design, writing an article, anything project-related really—I would find myself buried in frustration by the halfway point. Creative blocks would come almost immediately from the outset, and every time I would hurdle one, another would present itself. It was like this for almost anything I worked on, and soon it became debilitating.

And I know I wasn’t alone.

That frantic feeling that I wasn’t good enough to finish, that maybe I wasn’t even good enough to start, would always rear it’s all-to-common face. It’s the little voice in the back of your mind that emerges just as you hit a roadblock, and once it comes, it’s incredibly hard to convince it to take a hike. I would imagine that a lot of people simply quit when facing it, and I used to be one of them, but then I was introduced to a little book—barely breaking the hundred page mark, it really is a tiny tomb—that let me in on a little secret. No it’s not “The Secret”, that would be too obvious. The book is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White, and it changed my life for the better.

Work from a suitable design

Now, what does that mean? As expressed in the book, which is merely a list of guidelines on writing, it means to plan before you write. But the idea transcends writing, and it can be equally applied to almost anything that will require an ample amount of work.

Planning is one of those things that we hate to do. Why ‘plan on doing’ when you can simply ‘do’? Because it adds a sense of organization that is very transparent in our work, is the answer. When you plan for a project, you’re taking the spontaneous nature of a creative medium and creating a structure out of it. Planning organizes your thoughts and ideas, and by putting them on paper, it allows you to see the work as a whole and make changes based on the big picture, well before you find yourself in a position asking, “What if I would have done this?” Sure, you can order things as you go, but that lack of preparation also shines through. And it’s also where that nasty little voice feeds.

Planning can use a variety of difference devices. Flow charts, website wireframes, lists, they all fit the mold.

Imagine a large crew of construction workers at a job site. There are materials piled into trucks, tools ordered in work vans, and a blueprint that brings everything together. Now take away the blueprint. What you have left is a disheveled mess of boards, hammers, and people. They could try to assemble a building based on previous experiences, following the routine they know so well: Establish a foundation, construct the skeleton with two-by-fours, apply the protective Tyvek wrappings, mason the bricks together. They might even be able to build the thing, but there will be consequences.

Ventilation systems will find themselves unable to fit throughout the building, while the integrity of the construction would be entirely unknown and therefore a safety hazzard. Electricity would be a pain in the ass to wire, and even if you could work around these problems, who’s to say it will still stand erect when met by the weight of it’s inhabitents? At most they could manage to build a treehouse with this method, one I wouldn’t even let the annoying neighborhood kid who frequently vandalizes my house play in. What about building a skyscraper this way? It would be 9/11 all over again, only without the planes. And that’s assuming they could get past the 1st floor.

With a blueprint, all of that could be avoided. Electric and ventilation would be considered in the plans, and you could make accurate estimates on weight-capabilities, the number of laborers needed, all the way down to the dollar amount it would take to fund the project. It’s the same thing for web design. Any design for that matter. Writing, drawing, sewing. Draw up a plan, and you’ll always have a reference when you need guidance.

And with your new plan, you can conquer the nay-saying voices in your head. They’ll still try to show face, but as soon as you sense any trouble, you can just look at your pre-project notes. What content is going to go on this pretty new Contact page I just coded? Refer to your notes, and you’ll see that you wrote:

1. Needs a contact form
2. Needs a street address
3. Needs a phone number
4. Needs a message to tell the user they will get a response soon

Now, instead of typing the contact form, sitting back and thinking that the address would be good next, typing the address, sitting back again and considering what else could go there, deciding that a phone number would be good, then typing that, you can just go off the list, checking each one off as you go. A generic application, but a great example. When everything is checked off, you’ll have a complete page, minus the headache and potential self-loathing.

Connect the dots

When writing, it helps to know the topics you are going to hit. This entire article was written from a basic plan, and then expanded on: Introduction, Point One, Point Two, an Example, and an Ending are the key points I outlined before I even hit the power button on my computer. With the new list, I could very easily write an introduction and then, almost like a game of connect the dots, move to the first point. When I run out of steam or have sufficiently proven my point, on comes Point Two. I expand this out to a paragraph or two, then move on this way until I am finished.

As the writer of countless short stories and a few screenplays, it should be noted that they each follow the same method. Write in a beginning, an end, then connect them with words. As soon as they tie together, you have a story. It creates an arc, and lends the story a sense of dynamicism. It keeps the rhythm changing, and that’s the stuff of good fiction.

Try applying this principle to the everyday. The next time you go to the grocery store, make a list and see how much quicker you can find what you need. When you go to write that next article or proposal, consider laying out your main points on paper first. Designing a website? Wireframe it up beforehand and list all the features you’d like it to include. Although lists aren’t the funnest things to make, and plotting out everything you do sounds a little dull, they allow us to organize our profession while maintaining the spontaneity of our muse, resulting in fuller, more complete finished works.