If you doodle while talking on the phone, psychology says you display these 7 unique traits

Be honest: do your margins fill up with little stars, vines, or boxes the moment you pick up a call?

Same here.

For years—especially back when I was a financial analyst sitting through hour-long earnings calls—I’d catch my pen drifting into patterns while my ears stayed locked on the conversation. I used to think it meant I was distracted.

Over time, I realized the opposite was true: I remembered more, asked sharper questions, and felt calmer.

If you’re a fellow phone-call doodler, you’re not just passing time.

You’re revealing a set of useful traits that, when understood, can become strengths you lean on intentionally.

Let’s dig into the seven that show up most often—plus a few ways to use them to your advantage.

1. Attentional anchor, not distraction

Counterintuitive but true: a light, repetitive motion can help your brain stay tuned to the main signal of a conversation.

Think of doodling as a tiny “anchor” that keeps your attention from drifting too far into daydream land.

When your hand traces a simple shape, it occupies just enough bandwidth to prevent full-on mind wandering, leaving your listening focus intact.

As noted by cognitive psychologist Jackie Andrade, participants who doodled during a boring audio task actually remembered more details than those who didn’t—suggesting that low-level sketching can support sustained attention rather than sabotage it.

Try this: keep your doodle simple—lines, loops, blocks—so it supports attention instead of stealing it.

If the conversation spikes in importance, pause the pen and let full focus take over.

2. Efficient working memory

Do you ever hang up and recall the exact phrasing of a key sentence—or the order of three action items—without looking at notes? Doodlers often can.

That pen movement functions like a cognitive “metronome,” pacing your intake and preventing overload.

You’re signaling to your mind: stay with the gist, capture the essentials, ignore the fluff.

This economy of effort is a hallmark of efficient working memory—knowing how to keep what matters online while allowing nonessentials to glide by.

A simple tweak: after the call, circle or box a single element of your doodle and write three bullets beside it.

You’ll create a quick visual index that helps your brain reaccess the conversation later.

3. Visual-spatial thinker

“Doodling is deep thinking in disguise.” That line from facilitator and author Sunni Brown has always stuck with me.

If your first impulse is to sketch while someone speaks, chances are you naturally process ideas in images and spatial relationships.

You might hear an argument and picture a flow, a map, or a cluster.

You might draft boxes for the steps, arrows for the dependencies, and shading for urgency.

This isn’t decoration—it’s translation. You’re converting sound into structure.

Leverage it: when stakes are high, start the call with a blank sheet divided into two or three regions (e.g., “facts,” “risks,” “decisions”).

Let your doodles organize what you hear. You’ll often spot gaps and patterns others miss.

4. Calm under pressure (micro-regulator)

Ever notice your drawing gets slower and rounder when the conversation turns tense?

That’s self-regulation in real time. Doodling can nudge your system toward steadier breathing and looser muscles—enough to keep your voice level and your questions thoughtful.

You don’t need elaborate art to get the benefit. In my experience, small repeating shapes—like scallops or ladder rungs—act like a tactile exhale.

You’re giving your body something rhythmic and predictable while your mind navigates the unpredictable.

Practical move: choose one soothing pattern you return to only during tricky moments.

Over time, your nervous system will learn the association: pattern = steady.

5. Creative connector and incubator

A lot of good ideas show up in the margins.

Literally.

When your hand idles in a loop, your brain toggles between focused listening and gentle background synthesis.

That quiet oscillation is fertile ground for creative links—connecting the client’s offhand comment to a solution you saw last month, or tying a tiny detail to a bigger strategy shift.

This is backed by experts like Jonathan Schooler and colleagues, whose research on “incubation” shows that allowing a light cognitive drift can boost creative problem-solving after a period of focused work.

One oft-cited paper found that breaks that invite mind wandering improved performance on creative tasks compared to more demanding breaks.

Your doodle is that kind of break, braided into the call itself.

Use it: if a conversation stalls, sketch three boxes and label them “Now / Next / New.” Jot or draw one tiny association in each.

You’ll surprise yourself with what emerges.

6. Preference for autonomy and agency

People who doodle while listening often bristle at being force-fed bullet points.

You prefer to shape raw information yourself—pacing it, chunking it, layering it in a way that fits how you think.

That’s a strength. Agency matters for learning and for leading.

Your doodles reflect a self-directed approach: “I’ll engage, but on terms that help me contribute best.”

During calls, this can translate into better follow-up questions and clearer decisions because you’ve actively built your own model instead of renting someone else’s.

Try this: before dialing, set a simple intention in the margin: “What decision am I moving toward?”

Let your sketching orbit that north star.

You’ll steer the conversation instead of getting pulled by it.

7. Comfort with ambiguity

Some people need everything resolved as it’s said. Doodlers tend to tolerate the fuzzy middle—letting ideas be half-formed while they take shape.

You can hold competing interpretations without panic, keep your tone warm, and reserve judgment until the pattern clarifies.

That comfort with “not yet” is invaluable in complex work and relationships.

It buys you time to listen for what’s unsaid and to notice the pivot point—the detail that turns confusion into clarity.

On practical terms: when a call is murky, sketch a question mark at the center of your page and radiate branches for hypotheses.

As clarity arrives, darken the relevant branch and cross out the rest. You’ll feel (and sound) grounded while still open.

So… is doodling always helpful?

Not if it hijacks your attention. The line is simple: if your sketch helps you listen, remember, and respond, it’s a tool.

If it steals focus, it’s noise.

A few guardrails keep it on the right side:

• Keep it low-complexity. Repetitive patterns beat picture-perfect portraits.

• Listen for your “focus meter.” If you miss a name or date, park the pen.

• Make it actionable. End each call by turning a corner of the page into a tiny checklist.

What your doodle style might whisper

I’m not a fan of overinterpreting shapes (“triangles mean X, flowers mean Y”).

But there are gentle signals worth noticing:

• Geometric grids can hint that you value structure. You likely shine when a messy issue needs a framework.

• Organic loops may suggest your superpower is relational insight—tone, subtext, and timing.

• Arrows, flows, and connectors scream systems thinking. You’re the person who sees how parts interact, not just how they look alone.

Treat these as starting points, not verdicts. The point is to notice what your hand does when your mind is engaged—and to recruit that habit on purpose.

A quick story from the margins

Last month I was on the phone with a farmers’ market coordinator about reworking volunteer shifts.

While we talked, I sketched a loose trellis—just lines and intersections—almost without thinking.

Midway through, I realized we were describing the wrong problem.

We didn’t need more volunteers; we needed better handoffs at the intersections—exactly where my lines crossed.

That doodle nudged me to ask a better question: “Where do people get stuck between roles?” We found two choke points, fixed the handoffs, and the “volunteer shortage” vanished in a week. That’s the power of a pen traveling alongside your ears.

How to make the most of your doodling habit

If you see yourself in these traits, here’s a mini playbook:

• Prime the page. Draw two light columns—“signal” and “noise.” As you doodle, let key facts drift into the signal column.

• Name your pattern. Pick one go-to style for calm (loops), one for structure (boxes), and one for ideation (arrows). Switch as the call moves.

• Close the loop. End every call with three bullets and one commitment. Then snap a photo and file it. Future-you will be grateful.

Final thoughts

If you reach for a pen the moment you hear a dial tone, you’re not childish or rude—you’re revealing a brain that anchors attention, trims cognitive clutter, thinks in images, regulates stress, incubates ideas, values agency, and tolerates ambiguity.

That’s a robust toolkit for modern life.

So keep your pen moving—lightly, intentionally, and in service of what matters.

And if anyone side-eyes your spirals, you can smile and say, “This is me listening.” Then prove it with the clarity of your next question and the usefulness of your next step.