My habit when I plan to travel, is to buy a travel book. Like this one. I bought it for my 11 days trip to Brussels and the Netherlands. As for the Netherlands, it really helped. You can find suggestions on activities to you, local attractions although there are few that was quite outdated by a year, lists of hotels and trams numbers to take from point A to point B, to do lists in the cities and most importantly, suggestion on museums and places to eat. I finished reading the whole book about 3 hours before I arrived in Amsterdam. After surviving 11 days of travelling, I can safely say, this book is a good guide book.
Great start to planning a trip, but could use a few small features, such a place to write a wishlist for destinations, and identifier for where the pictures are from. The pictures are intriguing, but have no labels to tell of which destination they are associated with. Overall, this is definitely the book I am using to plan my next trip.