I like to think I'm a decent programmer and I'm also a down right terrible hobbyist illustrator/cartoonist. Over the years I've filled notebook after notebook

I like to think I'm a decent programmer and I'm also a down right terrible hobbyist illustrator/cartoonist. Over the years I've filled notebook after notebook with a mix of hand written notes and bad illustrations to help solidify the ideas in my own mind. Occasionally I will page back through looking for something I remember I wrote down, but most of it is just to help myself in the moment. As an extension of this, when someone comes and asks me a question I start with a verbal explanation. If it isn't clicking for the person I quickly reach for a pen or a whiteboard marker and start drawing diagrams while I talk. This usually leads to a quicker "aha" moment for the person; a picture is worth a thousand words. For a long time it was not something I considered much; it's just been an extension of how I think for as long as I can remember. Sometime back I ran into an ex-colleague; we hadn't worked together in about a decade. After the usual chit chat of catching up she said to me, "Do you still doodle when you work? I will always remember how you constantly drew pictures of everything and how it made things so much easier to understand. I hope you still do that.". I laughed and told her how surprised I was that someone would even remember that after so many years, but that yes I continued to draw pictures of my thoughts like I always had.