I'm an Unrepentant Fidgeter

Whether in class, a meeting, conversation, a movie, or whatnot, I can't hold still. I've been telling people for years that having something to do with my hands or physical environment helps me keep my attention focused on that immediate environment instead of drifting off into my head, even if I appear less attentive. In library school I even had to do remedial work on my "attitude" because of this habit. But I'm not alone in my belief and there's evidence to back me up.

Study: Doodling Helps You Pay Attention

. . . a delightful new study . . . showed that doodlers actually remember more than nondoodlers when asked to retain tediously delivered information, like, say, during a boring meeting or a lecture. . . .

Why does doodling aid memory? Andrade offers several theories, but the most persuasive is that when you doodle, you don't daydream. Daydreaming may seem absentminded and pointless, but it actually demands a lot of the brain's processing power. You start daydreaming about a vacation, which leads you to think about potential destinations, how you would pay for the trip, whether you could get the flight upgraded, how you might score a bigger hotel room. These cognitions require what psychologists call "executive functioning" — for example, planning for the future and comparing costs and benefits.

Doodling, in contrast, requires very few executive resources but just enough cognitive effort to keep you from daydreaming, which — if unchecked — will jump-start activity in cortical networks that will keep you from remembering what's going on. Doodling forces your brain to expend just enough energy to stop it from daydreaming but not so much that you don't pay attention. . . .