Are you a planner or a pantser?

By one theory, people write in 1 of 2 ways: they are ‘planners’ or ‘pantsers’ (by the way, we do not recommend using ‘pantser’ in formal writing!):

• A planner starts by working out a plan.
• A pantser ‘just writes’ – they fly by the seat of their pants.

Both have their advantages – planners might waste less time writing material that is ultimately useless, but pantsers are better at avoiding ‘paralysis by analysis’, in which the plan becomes a straightjacket that constricts creativity.

As with many things in life, a middle way is often the best – some planning helps avoid wasting a lot of time later on, but we can plan to leave some tasks relatively open and flexible, to allow some pantsing. It varies with the kind of project. A short story might be entirely pantsed, but a large website about industrial safety standards in Australia must be planned very thoroughly.

We may well want to plan the project on the large scale, but once we know what chunks we need, we can pants the chunks. (By the way, we do not recommend ‘pants the chunks’ as a phrase to use in formal writing!)

You might need to figure out how much planning works for you.

Planning:

• saves time later on
• helps make sure the document does what it is supposed to.

Pantsing:

• breaks the ice and gets some words on the page
• gives more room for creativity (if the project allows it).

Many famous people have thought about planning and plans. Here are some quotes to inspire (or warn!).