Plotting and Planning

What do you all do for plotting? I've heard a popular strategy in NaNoWriMo is making outlines and writing from them, and Novelist's Boot Camp requires very extensive outlining.

I really can't handle it, to the point I'm not sure if I can go with the NBC strategy. I have problems outlining essays—anything for which I have to outline ends up choppy with extremely questionable/terrible transitions. I may not hit absolutely everything without an outline, but at least I feel like it flows. That's just for nonfiction, too—something that draws only from my own inspiration is going to feel much worse than usual if I try to make it fit something.

On the other hand, I can't just decide to write a chapter (*cough* first chapter of Break Out *cough*) and write it. I need to have some prior plan in my head, and I have plotted "outlines" of entire chapters like this. Actually, I think it's more like making a movie of it, though I do end up with a few loose phrases I want to incorporate (a lot of which I actually don't, incidentally...).

I'm not sure exactly how much organization I'm trying to get—or how much I need to get. It's an art, I guess. Until then, pantsing it is.