A well-designed database promotes consistent data entry and retrieval, and reduces the existence of duplicate data among the database tables. Relational database tables work together to ensure that the correct data is available when you need it. It's a good idea to plan a database on paper first.

Sahaa Solutions suggests these general steps to plan a database:

1. Determine the purpose for your database, or the problem you want to solve. For example, "to keep a list of my customers," "to manage my inventory," or "to grade my students." If other people will use the database, be sure to talk with them about the data they will need.
2. Consider the information you will store in your database. Typically, information falls into broad categories. Accurately identifying these categories is critical to designing an efficient database, because you will store different types and amounts of data in each category. For example, a database intended to track sales has categories such as "products," "invoices," and "customers." A database that records student grades has categories such as "students," "classes," and "assignments."
3. Once you've determined the broad categories, consider how these categories are related.
4.  Once you've identified your categories of information, you are ready to organize your database.
5. Determine the database tables and the data they will include, and, in turn, which fields you will need.
6. Decide which fields will contain common data among the tables.
7. Determine the match fields for each table, and circle each one in your plan.
8. For each table, decide which fields will store data, and which ones will be used from related tables.
9. Determine the relationships between the tables. In your plan, draw a line from each match field in a table to the corresponding match field in the related table.
10. Determine whether you need to share your database with other users, and how they will access the data.
11. Consider who will use the database and whether you want to restrict access to it. When you create the database, assign access privileges as needed.
12. Decide what layouts you need, and plan a separate layout for each task.
13. Create your database.