The surprising link between boredom and creativity

This will make you re-think your relationship with social media.

You stare at the screen, eyes skipping over reams of information, data and numbers. The phone beeps with a text from a friend; a flashing pop-up on your desktop alerts you to a new email in your inbox; another alarm reminds you of a meeting you had scheduled; an alert reminds you to take your vitamins.

At the end of the workday, exhausted, you scroll through Instagram, beautifully curated photographs flashing in front of your eyes as you mindlessly throw hearts around like confetti. Too tired to think, you log on to Twitter to catch up with the day’s news. Then you check your email only to realize you do not have the bandwidth to process any of the messages that have hit your inbox.

By this time, your brain has all but shut down. It’s screaming for a break — it needs some quiet, to not have to process any more information or crunch through any more data that you keep throwing at it. But the problem is that you’re not used to being bored anymore.

Since your brain refuses to process what you’re trying to read, you decide to log on to Netflix to “unwind”.

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember that usual summer holiday refrain, “but mommy, I’m bored!” And mommy would tell you to go out and play, or to go to your room and draw.

I remember summer holidays when I had my fill of reading, of drawing, and even of going outside to play. I remember making up stories of my adventures as I traveled across the country in my horse drawn caravan, spending the nights in open fields, gazing up at the starry skies.

A lot of those stories that I made up in my imagination had their origins in my lived reality – of going for “buggy rides” with my aunt who had a horse-drawn carriage; of spending evenings lying on my back as I looked up at the stars. I took bits from the stories I had read and the cartoons I had watched, mixing them all up in the cauldron of my imagination to come up with stories of my brave {imagined} adventures.

I belong to the generation that grew up without the internet. I remember creating my first email account when I was in college. Back then, we had to visit an internet cafe to go online, and the speeds, compared to now, were laughably slow. {Who else remembers waiting for the dial up modem to connect to the internet? Do you also remember how much more patient we were then?}

It’s really with the launch of the iPhone in 2007 that we’ve become accustomed to going everywhere with a small, always-on computer in our pockets. Thanks to which, we have forgotten how to be bored.

And that, I think, is a tragedy.

How boredom sparks creativity

Standing in line at the grocery store, you groan at how slowly the line seems to be moving. In your mind, you’re flipping through your to-do list, mentally planning how you’ll get to your next task. At the same time, you pull out your mobile phone and log on to Instagram, waiting to check-out from the store and get on with the rest of your evening.

And that, right there, is a moment when you could have been bored, but you gave in to the distraction of the attention economy instead.

A study on boredom published in the Academy of Management Discoveries found that boredom can spark individual productivity and creativity.

We are typically bored when we have nothing to do – like standing in line to pay for our groceries, waiting for a friend, washing dishes or walking down a familiar route. Our brains lack stimulation at this time, which leads to boredom, which leads to the ignition of the “default mode” in our brain.

This is when our body goes into autopilot. But our brain — it gets really busy!

According to Sandy Mann, author of The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredom Is Good:

“Once you start daydreaming and allow your mind to really wander, you start thinking a little bit beyond the conscious, a little bit into the subconscious, which allows sort of different connections to take place.”

In this mode, our brain is able to connect disparate ideas and solve nagging problems. It’s also when we tend to hit eureka moments, get new ideas, or find some much needed clarity or next steps with a particular goal or project.

But these days, we check our emails while standing in line at the grocery store or listen to a podcast or audiobook while doing the dishes or going for a walk. We call it productivity, but what we are really doing is shifting our attention between multiple things.

It’s not efficient or effective. Your brain is literally using up nutrients to make rapid switches as you hop between multiple apps or multi-task your way through life.

But if we reduce our co-dependency on our gadgets and allow our minds to wander, we can fire the problem-solving and creative neurons in our brains instead.

Don’t confuse boredom with relaxation

At this point, you may be thinking that you’re doing quite ok with this whole boredom thing. You meditate. You practice mindfulness while walking. You have a regular yoga practice.

But are you just confusing boredom with relaxation? To tap into true boredom, pick an activity that needs little or no concentration — like washing dishes, walking a familiar route, or just sitting on the couch with your eyes closed, and letting your mind wander. Don’t listen to music, definitely don’t plug into a podcast, and don’t jump up every few minutes to check your phone.

Once you allow yourself to experience boredom a few times, you’re likely to find that your mood and your creative ideas improve. As Jonny Smallwood, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of York, says:

“There’s a close link between originality, novelty, and creativity…and these sort of spontaneous thoughts that we generate when our minds are idle.”

And in an always-on environment, we can agree that our minds are rarely, if ever, idle.

So here’s my challenge to you: This week, spend at least 30 minutes getting bored. Let your mind be idle. Let it wander. And come back here and tell me what happens. Deal?

You may also like