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Personally I'm a big fan of a synopsis, but I can see it could be overkill for a short story.
However, very important for me is to know the characters of my story - again maybe overkill for a short. I usually write a prehistory of at least the main characters, so that I know as much about them as possible, including lots that I'm not going to use. Most important is how they got where they are when they jump into the story.
I'm beginning to find it useful also to do a similar thing for locations. As much detail as possible, including drawing a map of, say, a house, of the area around the house, etc. Where do people go to do their shopping. I even go to the extent of taking photographs of likely-looking buildings and locations - the inside I can design more or less as I like, of course. Wallpaper, carpets, furniture, the works.
This is very important for us men, I believe. A woman can go into a room turn on her heel and leave, and give you a detailed description of the room including the dust under the tv and the crumbs on the table. Men often don't know what is the primary colour of the walls in their own house.
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