Drawing for Creativity

I've always liked drawing stuff. Maybe it's the process of creating something, or could it be something else? I don't know really. Anyway, I've recently noticed how it can make me focus and boost my creativity, even for problems that seemingly have no connection to drawing stuff.

I noticed it when I was planning the architecture for a todo app I'm building for minimalists. I was sitting down with my morning tea and rather than just sketching it roughly, I focused on the drawing itself. This worked like warmup for the mind. Solutions for hard architecture decisions just came to me after and during this process, without much effort at all.

When you think about it, it's not that crazy. Drawing will stimulate the creative parts of your mind and this will help you make better decisions for problems that are not obvious but require some thought.

So, there you go. From now on I always play around with drawings when working on hard problems. Whether it's system architecture, algorithms or something completely different like refurnishing my apartment. Drawing makes it more fun, helps you come up with solutions and above all, you get a collection full of awesome pieces like this:

Disclaimer: I never said I was any good at drawing ;)