Sketching, you can do magic too

Today I really felt like sharing a magical tool for capturing and sharing ideas: Sketching.

In one of the Harry Potter movies (and books), there’s a scene where Harry and Dumbledore are in the headmaster’s office staring at a magical basin called the Pensieve. Dumbledore puts his wand to his forehead, gently pulls out a shiny memory and drops it into the Pensieve so they can both observe it. The book reads something like this:

“I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

Well that’s exactly how sketching works, like magic.

You raise your pen, pencil or marker up to your forehead, put on a thinking face (very important) and then gently pull out a thought into a piece of paper. Magic.

Sketching is an amazing tool to better communicate with yourself. When your thoughts are out there, they are no longer lingering in your mind, they’ve taken a tangible shape. Ideas are ephemeral but sketching can help you put a pin on them, and once they are on paper, you get to see them from a different perspective.

When working with others, it gets even better. Sometimes you might want to share your ideas early on and try to put them into a half-assed powerpoint. In this era of death by powerpoint, your team won’t know if it’s a draft or you just suck at it. A sketch is a rough representation, a conversation starter. It is more tangible than words, but as flexible. People don’t think of a sketch as a finished piece, quite the opposite, so it naturally invites collaboration.

I know what you are thinking… that’s great and all but I don’t know how to draw… To that I say, even better. Sketching is not the same as drawing. It doesn’t matter what or how you draw, as long as it’s helping you think or share your thoughts you’re fine.

I’d like to help you get started with sketching, so here are three simple tips:

1. Start thick
   Using a Sharpie or a board marker will force you to keep it simple and shy away from the details early on. Keep the conversations at a high level, using words, basic shapes, arrows, connectors.
2. Time-box your sketches
   Set a time and a goal and work to it. Try things like getting five sketches in 3 minutes. This way you’ll stop yourself from dwelling too much on an idea and jump onto the next. You can always come back later to review them. When sketching, quantity beats quality.
3. Have fun, keep it loose
   A sketch is not meant to be polished. It’s all about capturing an idea. If you are too attached to it, or putting too much pressure on that little scribble, remember to loosen up. Don’t over think it. Start again, and again, and again.

Sketching is a magical tool to help you capture thoughts and share them with others. So the next time you are thinking of something or coming up with ideas, just grab a marker, take it up to your forehead, gently pull out that thought and capture it into a piece of paper.

Remember: you can do magic too.