I try to keep a legal pad at my work desk at all times, so that whenever I get stuck or bored, I can just move over to the legal pad to keep my hand in motion, making marks until my brain gets back on track. (I learned this technique from Lynda Barry.) I use a legal pad and not a nice sketchbook because it’s cheap and I don’t feel like I’m wasting good paper on my crummy scratches.

Every once in a while I’ll come up with a doodle I really like:

And sometimes a podcast or a video will compel me to start taking notes, like with this excellent speech by Richard Nash on the future of publishing: