Do you have a list of things you need to remember? You could try writing it all down. But if you really want to sear them into your brain, you might want to sketch them out.

Canadian researchers have found that when we draw pictures of things, we remember them twice as well than if we had just written them down. And they found it doesn’t even have to be that great a doodle: this method works for everyone from scribblers to amateur Picassos.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo found there’s something about drawing a doodle that makes it stick in our memories better.

The study’s lead author, Jeffrey Wammes, a PhD candidate in the department of psychology, worked with a team who conducted seven experiments on this idea. They gave volunteers a list of simple, easily-drawn words, such as “apple,” “balloon” or “jacket.” They then asked them to try to remember them using some common memorizing techniques -- what Wammes calls “the usual suspects in memory research.”

In one experiment, the participants wrote the word out repeatedly; in another, they concentrated hard and created mental images of each item; in another, they listed physical characteristics of each item; in another, they viewed photos of the objects to try to seal the images into their memories. Other volunteers were asked to simply draw doodles of the items.

The volunteers then did a “filler task,” to occupy their brains for a bit; in this case, classifying a bunch of musical tones. Afterwards, they had 60 seconds to try to recall as many words as possible from their lists.

Time and time again, those who drew doodles showed better memory retention than those using any other method. In some cases, the doodlers recalled more than twice as many items as the others.

So what is it about drawing something that makes us better able to remember it?

Wammes says the team thinks that it comes down to the fact that there’s a few processes going on in our brains when we draw something. When we are asked to draw a picture of a pear, for example, the first thing we do is think of what makes a pear, a pear? We think of its shape, its size, its colour. That process is called “elaboration.”

Then, we automatically generate a mental image of that thing, a process called “visual imagery.” Then there is the “motor action” of using our hand to draw; and finally, we are left the final doodle that we can think back on.

Wammes says while each of those components on their own can act as memory cues, but putting them together in a drawing allows for “synergistic interaction” of each component.

“Because you‘re doing all those things into one integrated action, it seems it’s probably binding those four things together and giving you a better boost to your memory than any one of those things on their own,” he told CTVNews.ca.

“So you remember generating the mental image; you remember the specific action of drawing it; and you remember the actual picture you produce it,” he said.

Wammes says this unexpectedly powerful memory tool -- this “drawing effect” -- may be why teachers often ask students to explain concepts such as “photosynthesis” or “evaporation” not just with words but with diagrams.

“Research in education has shown that any time you can incorporate a diagram or any interactive activity that gets them to produce something visually, they’re going to have a better memory of it,” he said.

So next time, you need to remember something and aren’t able to carry a list, take a few seconds to sketch it out.

“Drawing gives you a bunch of extra things to remember that will lead you back to that initial word,” he said.

The study appears in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.