Ahhhh, panning while recording. If by that you mean record to put on a CD then here are my thoughts on that. Gunnar said it pretty well. I genarally record in stereo, But even if your recording in mono it probably will not matter. It also depends on what you're using to record with...If you're using a computer, then you have it made.
I usually treat my tracks like a pyramid scheem. First I split all of the tracks that need to be equally panned. If in mono, just have 2 tracks of these types of tracks.
I take my bass parts (bottom of the pyramid) and pan them hard left and hard right. This puts the bass in the "bottom" of the stereo feild. I continue in this manner, but I don't pan the more important parts as much. This places them in the stereo feild in order of importance. If I have more than 1 instrument doing a melody line, then I'll pan one a bit left and the other a bit right. Vocals and the solos should run right down the middle. It's nice if you can treat the drums in the same manner. My drumming program has auto pan, so no problems there. Bass drum(s) panned to the bottom of the stereo feild, snare up a bit to the middle. The toms and symbols and such go from side to side. If I play one cymble, it crashes on the right, another would crash on the left. Toms move through the field acording to the tone, lowest right to the highest on the left.
Any way thats the way I like to do it.