Ten bad sketches before one good idea

My first move on any new project is still a cheap pen and a stack of printer paper. Not because it looks nice, but because it’s the fastest way to throw ideas away. A few tricks that make it work:

Set a timer and aim for quantity

Give yourself eight minutes and eight boxes, one idea per box. The first three will be obvious. Somewhere around the fifth you’ll draw something you wouldn’t have found in a design tool.

Use a thick pen

A marker stops you drawing detail. You can’t fuss over corner radius with a Sharpie, so you’re forced to think about layout and flow instead.

Draw the content, not boxes

Write real headlines and real button labels, even badly. A sketch full of squiggly lines hides the hardest question: what does this screen actually say?

Sketch the in-between states

Empty, loading, error and full. Four tiny thumbnails of the same screen catch problems that one polished mockup never shows.

Photograph it and move on

Snap the best sheet with your phone and drop it into the design file as a reference. Then start building, and keep the paper nearby for the next time you get stuck.