text: for something important, do you outline before you type?   out lines are a valuable tool for doing papers.  they don't just organize the material, which is in itself valuable, they keep it organzied in your mind, and they break down the job into manageable steps.  often, just making the outline exposes weaknesses and gaps in the material and can also suggest to you better or additional ideas.  also, the more outlines of things that you do, the more practice your mind gets in organizing things, so you will tend to get faster at doing papers and letters and so on...