since i'm kind of a perfectionist, i ended up caving a couple weeks in and mapping out my entire town on google sheets. i did it unit square by unit square, and i measured out where each building was, where each of my trees and bushes were, what my paths were like, etc. it took a couple hours tbh but i am sooo glad i did it, because once i did all my mapping, i could start planning. i made a copy of my map, named it my "dream map," and started entering in where i wanted to place or move stuff. i really recommend doing this because even though it's totally time consuming, i use this map to check my town every day, as i'm building more and more pwps, landscaping, and placing villager houses!
here's a snippet of what my map looks like lol:
if that seems too extra for you (haha), i think it's great to go section by section in town. focus on one building/pwp that you've already built and work on just the area around it. plan general places where you'll put villager houses, so you know not to build pwps there. i think the most important part of planning your town is putting down your paths. once you've put down paths, you have a general framework of where you'll be moving around in your town, and you can see little sections you've carved out with your pathing.
if you have any questions about stuff i said (hehe i rambled a little, sorry!!), just let me know!!
hope that helped some!