I’ve been honored to return to the Lynda campus and record yet another online training video. The topic is preparing a proper outline. I’m super excited.

As an author, I’ve known how outlines help with productivity, but they don’t just apply to writing. You can outline a presentation, an agenda, or any of a number of common workplace documents. I would never start a project without an outline. Yet, in school, I hated outlining.

As a student, I just wanted to finish the project. Looking back, most of the papers were short, which means outlining is kind of pointless. It’s pointless to use a 3-by-5 stack of cards to create an outline for a 2-page paper, yet I remembered the concept.

In the computer realm, I’ve been a big fan of outlining software. Back in the early days, outlines were integrated into a word processor as they are today. The first true outlining software I used was Acta on the Macintosh.

On the PC, I used outlining software called Grandview. You’d be familiar with Grandview today, even though it was a text mode program running under DOS. That’s because Microsoft effectively lifted Grandview and integrated its commands into Word many moons ago.

Today, Word remains the best way to craft an outline. It’s handy because you can swiftly move from outline to final product in one software package.

Yet, there’s more to crafting an outline than just working the controls on the Outlining tab in Microsoft Word. That’s what my new course is about.

I do cover the outlining tools in Word as well as some tips and tricks. But the meat of the course is the process by which you create a well-crafted outline. The goal is to take random thoughts and data and sequence them into something that imparts knowledge or wisdom to your audience. And your audience can be one person reading a book or a crowd of hundreds watching a presentation. Outlining is the tool you use to keep that audience engaged and informed.

On Thursday’s post, I’ll show you some pictures of the session. Unlike most of my work on the Lynda campus, I’ll be shooting live action for this course. That means I’ll be in one of their state-of-the-art studios. I’m really looking forward to the experience, as well as to seeing the final course.