Flow and the Doodle

Not sure if this is doodling or defacing? But since my earlier post on Doodling and Flow, I have become conscious of a rather annoying habit.

When I become a little distracted in meetings, I find that I start to deface any hardcopies I have in front of me by colouring in all the enclosed areas of letters with my pen. So the loop in the lower-case letter "e" gets inked-in. Likewise, the p's and d's are candidates. I basically go through all letters on the pages in front of me .... a, b, d, e, g, o, p, q .... lower-case or capitals .... until I get bored of that - or run out of ink (which has happened).

I found that R is quite special case, being the only letter that is open in lowercase but has a closed loop as a capital. Now isn't that a revelation!

Anyway, having done this for years, I'm not too worried this behaviour .... but it does leave my meeting notes a little messy. I think my doodling provides a clear indication that I was not completely engaged in a meeting. Not necessarily bored, because this little exercise does not consume a lot of mental energy - just having additional mental energy that pours out onto the page.

I do find this not very creative form of doodling quite pleasant though .... a simple little exercise in flow.