Ancient Doodles

My Dad sent me a photo recently from a lecture he attended at the Huntington Library…it’s so cool.

It’s a page from a 1390 medical manuscript full of dense writing and detailed notes… clearly someone doing focused and important work.

And then at the bottom of the page, there are a few tiny doodled faces.

No explanation, no clear reason for them to be there. Just a couple of little expressions sitting in the margin.

I can’t help but imagine the moment. Writing, thinking, concentrating… and then deciding the page could use a tiny face or two.

It’s funny, but it’s also a very real reflection of how our brains work… and have worked for centuries.

Even when we’re focused, we still reach for small moments like this. A quick doodle, a fidget, some movement? Maybe you don’t even realize you’re doing it…

We see versions of this all the time now, especially in meetings or during deep work. It doesn’t always look like focus from the outside, but it often supports it from the inside.

That manuscript page just makes it clear that this isn’t new. It’s very human.

If you notice those small “margin moments” in your own work or your team’s, it might be worth paying attention to what they’re doing for you rather than trying to shut them down.