Creative Reset

Double Doodle (2 min.)

I’m going to share with you one of my favorite visual facilitation "energizers”— the Double Doodle! I have done this with kids, with executive teams, and it never fails to instantly get the whole room quiet, mesmerized, and everyone with a smile on their face. It’s the fastest mental “reset” that I know of— it just takes a minute or two.

This exercise comes from the Brain Gym, developed by Paul and Gail Dennison, and their work in the field of educational kinesiology and whole brain learning.

It integrates the right and left sides of the body and brain —and to even be able to do it — you have to get out of your head and into your body.

What you need:

  • a notebook or journal (you can use a piece of paper too, but you might have to tape it to your desk so it doesn’t move around because you’re going to be doodling with both hands.)

  • 2 markers — one for each hand (pens/pencils work too)

  • the willingness to experiment

So here’s the game:

Let your hands doodle nothing in particular ... but mirror the same thing with both hands.

Focus your eyes on the tip of a marker and your ears on the sound of the pen.

Color in the shapes you’ve made!