Thanks for the comments speedy and nuke. I definitely prefer to work on paper before I work in Maya. It's soooooooo much faster to make changes on paper.

I typically start off writing all my thoughts down on paper in words. It's the easiest and quickest way to work on my concept. Once I'm happy with my idea, I start sketching out the different items that I wrote down so I can see it visually. Sketching is fast so if I don't like anything, I can just erase and sketch again. Once I'm happy with my sketches visually, then I start modeling in Maya. Once I'm ready to jump into Maya, I already know "exactly" what I'm going to do and "how" i'm going to do it and "what" it's going to look like. It takes more time up front but I think it really pays off in the end. Overall, I spend alot less time on my projects this way.