Leadership

Want a Better Memory? Doodle!

By Robert Gerrish

Updated on: March 24, 2009 / 12:43 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Caught yourself daydreaming during a boring conference call or long meeting?

Are you a doodler?

Far from being a waste of time, doodling can make a boring phone call, presentation or speech easier to memorise, according to recent research at Plymouth University in the UK.

Many of us start to daydream when bored. A simple task, like doodling, while on a conference call is sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance. Volunteers were given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message. The doodlers were 29 percent better at remembering details than non-doodlers.

I would say that there are at least four categories of doodlers:

Creating borders around text.
Recurring shapes of squares, swirls, flowers, buildings, etc.
Specific images related to the conversation.
Creating structures and connecting thinking --- as sort of Mind Mapping (an acceptable form of doodling in meetings as it is considered as "Note-Taking").

I even doodle during my own PowerPoint presentations! To make my presentations more memorable I doodle, highlight and interactively capture information on the screen during presentations. I use a Tablet PC with a pen. You can do the same with your mouse (when in Slide Show mode, click on the options in the bottom left-hand corner and you can turn on the feature to highlight text or draw shapes) or small USB Drawing Tablet.

What doodles do you do? Are you a square or flower person? I would be interested to find out if you draw the same shape every time or not.