Acknowledging the reality of the extended mind might well lead us to embrace the extended heart.*
Annie Murphy Paul

You have the right to remain silent. But I hope you won’t. The world conspires to hold us back, but it can’t do that without our permission.**
Seth Godin

I’ve been asked to write a blog about
doodling at Christmas,
So I thought to share
one of the things here that I’ll be including:
Doodling extends the mind.
And by Annie Murphy Paul’s argument,
Potentially the heart –
I would also add the will.
Here’s Paul’s list of mind extensions:
Interception (being more aware of what our body sensations are telling us),
Movement,
Gesture,
Natural settings,
Designing built environments,
Space of ideas,
Thinking with:
Experts,
Peers,
Groups.
Doodling appears as an expression of movement,
When we are stuck with text, we can keep our hand –
And our mind –
Moving with a doodle.
When we’re doodling, we’re listening,
We’re moving with what we’re listening to:

One study found that people who were directed to doodle while carrying out a boring listening task remembered 29 percent more information than people who did not doodle, likely because the latter group had let their attention slip away entirely.*

There are lots of other reasons why
doodling is good for us,
But I thought you’d like to know this one and
have a play.

*Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind;
**Seth Godin’s The Practice.