Embrace the Random Scribbles
Doodling offers two big benefits: It entertains—and, even better, keeps us focused, finds an experiment at the University of Plymouth. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.1561/abstract" target="_blank">Doodlers listening to a long-winded recording of names and places remembered <i>nearly 30 percent</i> more of the information than non-doodlers</a>. The explanation: Scribbling keeps us from daydreaming. An uninterested brain usually stimulates itself by thinking about <i>anything</i> but what’s going on at the moment—which drains our executive resources. Because doodling isn’t nearly as cognitively demanding, we concentrate more on the task at hand.
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