Why You Should Doodle More

Studies find that distracted drawing can spark creativity and improve memory.

Doodling, long frowned upon as a symptom of boredom or inattention, may be a more productive use of your time than previously contended. Recent scientific research indicates that seemingly absent-minded tracings can help the brain process and retain information and solve problems.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Some researchers suspect doodling may help the brain remain active by engaging its "default networks"—regions that maintain a baseline of activity in the cerebral cortex when outside stimuli are absent, [a 2011] Lancet study says. People who were encouraged to doodle while listening to a list of people's names being read were able to remember 29% more of the information on a surprise quiz later, according to a 2009 study in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

A more recent study by Gabriela Goldschmidt, a professor emeritus of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s architecture department, found that doodling can help generate creative ideas, according to the WSJ:

The study discussed an architecture student who became stalled in his efforts to design a new kindergarten and started a habitual doodle he found pleasurable--writing his signature over and over. 

The student soon began to see between the letters of the doodle the outline of a layout for the kindergarten's three activity spaces. He drew progressively larger versions that eventually became an architectural sketch, the study says.

Don’t hold back from your mid-meeting art sessions. 

There are some limitations as to when doodling is actually helpful. A 2012 study found that doodling has a negative effect on primarily visual tasks, like trying to remember a certain set of images.

But otherwise, don’t hold back from your mid-meeting art sessions. Those curlicues and stick-figure cartoons (or elaborate recreations of famous artworks) may be helping your brain get down to work.