It's useful to understand the difference between problem space and solution space. Writing code (in most languages) is all about writing in solution space, and

It's useful to understand the difference between problem space and solution space. Writing code (in most languages) is all about writing in solution space, and sucks at talking about problem space. I find that most people tend to jump into their editor way too quickly and start writing the solution before they've thoroughly analyzed the problem. When I jump from editor to pen and paper it usually means that I'm having trouble mapping the code I'm writing to a part of the problem Im'solving, and I switch to exploring the problem more before going back to the solution. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that's pretty much what happened to you as well.