

Lo and behold, this “useless act” is really a highly functional technique with broad applications for the way we work and the way we think. For the doodle to offer up the possibility of all three modalities and an emotional experience is an impressive feat for such an outwardly simple behavior. Learning experts assert that, for information to be truly integrated, it must incorporate at least two of the major learning modalities or it must incorporate one modality coupled with a strong emotional experience. That last benefit of the doodle is no slouch. unify three major learning modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.enhance access to the creative, problem-solving, and subconscious parts of the brain, while allowing the conscious mind to keep working, and.activate the “mind’s eye,” or the portions of the visual cortex that allow us to see mental imagery and manipulate concepts,.increase information retention and recall,.increase our ability to focus (especially when handling dull or complex subject matter),.Doodling serves a myriad of functions that result in thinking, albeit in disguise. The act of doodling is the mind’s attempt to engage before succumbing to mindlessness. There is no such thing as a mindless doodle.

A more appropriate definition is long overdue.ĭoodling may be better described as ‘markings to help a person think.’ Most people believe that doodling requires the intellectual mind to shutdown, but this is one misrepresentation that needs correcting.

People have been solving problems and making sense of the world using simple visual language for over 30,000 years.

Scofield and what it does for hordes of humans around the world, these definitions are nothing short of obnoxious. But considering what doodling did for Dr. So what exactly does it mean “to doodle?” If you reference any standard dictionary, it will offer up a variety of disreputable definitions: To dilly-dally, to fiddle around, to make meaningless marks, or to do something of little value, substance, or import. She credits much of her success, then and now, to her world-turning decision to doodle. Scofield, she also became a celebrated immunologist, earning accolades for one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs related to HIV transmission. Not only did Virginia ace her organic chemistry final and eventually become Dr. She deployed a problem-solving technique that defied conventional wisdom and all the academic advice she had received. Virginia decided to draw rudimentary visual representations of every concept in her Morrison and Boyd textbook. Having exhausted traditional learning methods such as highlighting, note-taking, and rote memorization, Virginia chose to unleash a powerful, primitive tool that ultimately turned out to be her savior: The Doodle. She had to learn, integrate, and retain organic chemistry’s masochistic detail, and time was not on her side. or Death!” as there was no alternate route to pursuing her doctorate. Her career plan bumper sticker could have read “Ph.D. 3 days of design, code, and content for web & UX designers & devs.Īt the time, Virginia was a biological sciences student at the University of Texas.
