You’ve seen some of the beautiful bullet journals on Pinterest, and there’s more to this trend than an exercise in creativity. Using a bullet journal can make you a master of the website universe. And it all starts with a pen and paper.

In understanding how to write technical instructions, it’s best to understand how people read them. Most readers will want to know: (1) what you’re doing, and whether it’s relevant to what they are trying to do; and (2) how you did it.

This suggests a simple strategy: first, write about what you’re doing and why, and then, explain how to do it. If you leave out the why, or make it hard to find, your reader will have to closely examine your explanation to understand whether your technique is relevant to them at all. If you leave out the how or make it hard to find, your reader will struggle to replicate your efforts.