If you get a whiteboard, I would suggest putting it far enough away from your desk that you need to stand up (or roll over to it) in order to use it. I've found that kind of physical separation very helpful in creating a mental separation between "designing mode" and "implementing mode."
Good suggestion. I used to do something similar when I had a rolling white board. I be sure to keep it away from my desk as I was planning/designing and would then wheel it back over to my work area when it was implementation time and/or I needed reminders.
Though, I typically solve my most complex problems by leaving the computer and talking a walk around the block. That doesn't work out so well in these cold South Carolina winters, though. I need to get back out to CA.
I know it's all relative, but I woke up to -24F last week. Makes it real hard to think of South Carolina (of which my only memory is driving there in mid summer in a non A/C pickup truck) as "cold" ;-)
The coldest I have seen this year is about 14-18F. However, the downstairs heat was on the fritz for a bit so I regularly had 50-degree temperatures inside. That wasn't fun.
Oo, you're right. Summers here are absolutely terrible.
Strangely enough, my girlfriend is from New York and finds the cold here unbearable. She explained it as the inconsistency in temperatures as what makes it seem so bad to her. In NY, it was pretty consistently cold in the winter so she was able to expect it and adapt. Down here, you may have a 70F evening and then wake up to 30F and snowing the next day... that or you'll be followed around by tornadoes. :)
I've been thinking lately about building a white board web app. I can think of a number of benefits that this would offer, but I have also been wondering if not having the mental separation that you pointed out would overshadow all the possible benefits.
