How did you begin landscaping/planning your town

I've had this game for a little more than a month, and visiting all these gorgeous Dream Towns is making me itch to develop my town. I'm playing by the book (so no hacking or time traveling), but I have so many ideas about what I want to do with my town in the future.

I wanted to know- how did you guys begin planning out sections of your town? I know a lot of players are "laissez-faire" types, who just let their towns develop naturally, and build whenever they feel like it, but I can't help but get excited for what I'm going to build next and then after that and so on...

So if anyone has any tips on planning out a very general layout (like, a garden over here, and a tree grove over there, kind of sketch) of a only slightly developed town please let me know!

My town is almost finished, but was nowhere near that a year ago (I've had my town for a little over 3 now). I started really planning my town out first by planning where I wanted my villagers' houses to be. I know you said you're playing by the book, but I'd still recommend plot resetting your villagers; it makes your town look so much more organized.

After I had my villagers' house plots picked out, I started planning spots for where I wanted my pwps, and I started building them (though a lot of what I started with has changed). Once I had the main pwps I liked where I wanted them, I made nice, fenced off fruit orchards. Then I made a walkway around my town (something most people do before anything else). After all that, I started trying to fill extra space with shrubs, more trees, more pwps and tons of hybrids.

In short, start by filling large spaces in your town with big pwps, houses and trees, then fill in what space is left with more landscaping and path designs.

I've just built around my dreamies. I was not patient or confident enough to plot reset. I just walk around and let inspiration hit. Researching QR code for paths and other cute things also help with landscaping inspiration.