I've learned enough to begin writing programs from scratch, but I'm running into the problem of not knowing how to design the layout and implementation of a program. To be more precise, I'm having difficulty finding a good way to come up with an action plan before I dive in to the programming part. I really want to know what classes, methods, and objects I would need beforehand instead of just adding them along the way.

My intuition is leading me to using some kind of charting software that gives a hierarchal view of all the classes and methods. I've been using OmniGraffle Pro and while it does seem to work somewhat, I'm still having trouble planning out the program in its entirety. How should I approach this problem? What softwares out there are available to help with this problem? Any good reads out there on this issue?

Thanks so much!

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm using Eclipse and I code mainly in Java right now.