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" We&amp;#x27;ve all been there. You&amp;#x27;re stuck in a boring meeting or conference call and your mind wanders. Instead of taking notes, you start to doodle flowers or squiggly shapes on a notepad. While most people assume you&amp;#x27;ve stopped paying attention, new research reveals that doodling may actually help you retain information. Get your pens out for this news...According to a study in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, volunteers who doodled while listening to a dull phone message were able to remember more information than people who didn&amp;#x27;t doodle. Researchers asked 40 people to listen to a two and a half minute recording of a list of people and places. They were told to only write down the names of people going to a party. Half of the volunteers doodled while listening to the tape; the other half did nothing. When the recording was finished, everyone was asked to recall the names of the party-goers as well as additional place names. Who performed better? Surprise: Doodlers remembered 29 percent more than non-doodlers. &amp;quot;If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream,&amp;quot; said study author Jackie Andrade, Ph.D. &amp;quot;Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task.&amp;quot; Want more brain-boosters? Check out our piece on simple ways to get smarter--by tomorrow! Do you doodle during meetings? What do you draw? (I&amp;#x27;m an abstract doodler.) Do you find doodling distracting? P.S.: Having trouble posting a comment? Try logging out of glamour.com and then logging back in again. Then post your comment. Photo: iStock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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