Bracing a rain barrel platform
Depending on how deeply you've set those posts, the braces you show may not be adding any significant amount of rigidity. Diagonal bracing would be better, but may be overkill.

My 5'-high  platform for two rain barrels (with posts sunk 3' deep) has no braces on the thin ends, and has diagonals only to provide more support to the middle of the longer sides. And frankly those might not be needed since the structural framing of the top is 2x6'es on edge, with the long sides half-lapped into the 4x4 uprights and everything tied together with serious hardware (which I admit is installed in triplets.) Starting its third year, rock-solid despite carrying up to 1400 pounds of static load at times. (Plus 200 of dynamic load when I climb up to adjust things.)

Wood's strong stuff. Amateurs (including myself) are as likely to overdesign as underdesign. I looked at a number of designs on the web, applied my own experience as a volunteer framer, and settled for what seemed not-unreasonable overdesign. ("Anyone can build a bridge. You need engineering to build one that's strong enough at minimum cost." I applied rule of thumb and then threw money at the problem.)