After posting about her success on Facebook, the idea took off. She started selling her designs, known as Progress Maps, online in 2015 with customers in countries as far flung as Australia using them to stay focussed on goals such as clearing debt, losing weight or training for a marathon.

“There's almost a little bit of ceremony to it as well. People get really excited. They look forward to colouring in that swirl. It becomes something more than just swiping your finger on an app, or filling in a cell on a spreadsheet. It's more of an experience.”

Similarly, New York-based digital product designer Ryder Carroll created the Bullet Journal, a method of note taking and list making, out of a personal need. “What you see now is the culmination of a lifetime of me trying to solve my own organisational problems, all of which stem from being diagnosed with ADD when I was very young,” he says. “A big misconception is that we can't pay attention. But in my experience, we can pay attention, except you’re paying the attention to too many things at the same time. So I had to figure out a way to, in short bursts, capture information and also figure out how to be able to listen.”

Of the Bullet Journal, he says, “it was designed for me, but it was also designed for my kind of mind, which had to be flexible. Sometimes I use it to draw, sometimes I use it to write, sometimes it would be for planning, sometimes it would be for 'whatever' and I wanted a system that could do all those things.”

‘Getting your hands dirty’

Writing it down also sparks innovation. Being innovative and creative is about “getting your hands dirty” a feeling that is lacking when you use technology or gadgets, says Arvind Malhotra, a professor at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School.