Using simple drawing tools to unlock creativity

One day I have played with my kid's sketch pad toy. It's about 15 inches diagonal - almost like smaller PC monitor or laptop screen size. After drawing funny pictures I started to draw and solve some of my work problems. It was astonishing easy to work in that way, and soon I get simple solutions. I realized it is really good device to unlock creative possibilities.

I rethinked that again and spot some interesting factors that helped me to enter into that state:

• playing mood (it's almost as important as all other factors together)
• everything you draw or write is temporary, unless you try to save it in some way, otherwise you make one sweep and you have clear area ready for new ideas
• comfortable drawing with pen and handwriting unlocks physical obstacles slowing your work (like using keyboard)
• all factors shorten interaction on path brain - drawing surface
• the next similar tool is notepad with pen - loosing some of the play joyfulness

If we could transfer those features to laptop.. wait a minute there are laptops- tablet PCs! I've never used one but I'm really interested if is it as easy to work as simple sketch pad or notepad.