Take the Planning Challenge: 6 Quick Steps – And why it’s worth it!

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Much as I hate to admit it, the quickest way to save time is to do some planning up front. Plans don’t need to be long - try these 6 quick steps. They’re straightforward, fun & I believe, profitable…

(Author’s note: If you need to be convinced on why to plan read this - otherwise skip below to my 6 quick step planning guide)

In my experience, the world tends to fall into two camps. Either you're a planner, or you prefer to jump in and start and see what comes out. A quick hand count at team Wix showed we had an almost 50-50 split of both types of designers and marketers.

Neither is better than the other. But early on in my career I had an amazing CEO who sat me down and said: “it never hurts to plan as well as get started and let whatever needs to evolve, come about”.

A get my hands-dirty kind of guy, I tried her (yes, her) advice and it worked - it’s helped me out ever since. Mostly because, as much as I wouldn’t have liked to admit it then, planning saves you tons of time on the other end…

I’m not suggesting you change your style if you’re averse to planning, just maybe that you try to do both – jump into the Wix editor and play around AND spend a bit of time on the planning side. (Same challenge goes to planners out there – there’s a lot to learn from just starting, too!) Your MySpace page will be better for it.

A Simple 6 Step Plan:

Step 1: Define your purpose It may be “I want a new design” or “I want to make a million dollars off my business’s MySpace page”. Whatever it is, being clear from the get-go will make all your design decisions much easier!

Step 2: Look at what you have & Get Inspiration - Login into your own MySpace account and see what parts you want to change (if you aren’t already a member it’s pretty straightforward. Simply head to MySpace.com and follow the steps to Sign Up) - Play around on MySpace (You may also want to check out the Wix gallery for free MySpace layouts or head to the Wix MySpace layouts page). All this work upfront will help you narrow down your design choices later down the track.

Step 3: Research – otherwise know as “Collect all the info” – Who is visiting, music, artist, lawyer (professional) what are they doing

Step 4: Arrange all your stuff Text, photos, logos, videos…get it together into a document so it’s easy to find. You can also save it all into your "My Media" section in the Wix editor. Tip:

Step 5: Design Away If you’re using Wix, simply login to Wix.com (it’s free if you aren’t registered yet) and jump onto the Wix editor. Don’t forget to take advantage of the animation, and tons of free media content Wix is packed with!

Step 6: Change is Good – Update! The web is a dynamic medium, not a page of printed text! So plan time into edit your design every now and then -- spice it up with a new animation, refresh your design… Keep some files in your “My Media” for next time!

See also

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