Boredom.
A state of being that's gotten a pretty bad rap over the years.
But as I'm continuously trying to navigate this super connected world we're now living in, the constant consumption of media has not only left me feeling pretty drained, but the more I think that being bored isn't such a bad thing.
In fact, from a creative standpoint, it might actually be a really good thing.
Just hear me out.
I feel like we live in a very overstimulated world.
And lately, it feels like a little much.
Changes to Instagram, a growing trend in the US.
We're always being bombarded with information from social media platforms, keeping up with the trends.
What should we make and who should we watch?
It's all here to keep us busy and scrolling, jumping from one device to another and often not taking breaks for extended periods of time.
And I sense that this constant need to be entertained could turn into a life that's distracted.
I sense that most people have encountered this at some point or another, but lately just everything has been feeling like noise.
Everything online is starting to look like a copy of one another.
And as someone who's caught between trying to make sense of it while also barely keeping up with the pace of the world, it can get a little overwhelming.
And I think it's affecting my creativity.
But while in my search for an antidote, there was one idea I became increasingly curious about.
It started when I read Austin Kleon's book, Steal Like an Artist.
In the book, he says, take time to be bored.
Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.
I want to see what happens when I embrace this idea of boredom over the next couple of days.
If there is any difference at all in the creativity, in my ideas.
Did I need a detox?
Did I not?
Did I hate it?
Was it useless?
Just for an hour or two each day, how hard can that be?
So it's day one and I went a good, I was doing good.
I was doing good for the first two minutes.
And then I just reached for my phone out of habit.
I'm literally purposely doing this experiment.
The habit of just like picking up and checking our phones when we're literally doing nothing.
It's crazy.
So yeah, if that's any indication how things are going.
You see, an interesting thing happens when you're in a less stimulated state.
Our minds are able to wander, to get creative with problem solving and let one's dormant ideas find the space to plant roots and grow.
Just like when we get our best ideas in the shower or think up new characters for our book on our commute.
Our body goes on autopilot, and our minds go somewhere else.
And I don't think being bored literally has to be laying around doing nothing.
I think that it counts as washing the dishes and folding your laundry, going for a walk normal mundane, everyday things, just without reaching for your phone to help pass the time.
It's interesting that boredom is not typically something that's pursued, but many of the world's problems are because there is just too much of everything.
Too many possibilities, too many options, and something as simple as taking time to unplug requires focus and intent.
At least in the beginning.
Okay, so i have been really enjoying this experiment.
So far it's only been three days, but i feel like there is something about needing to fill the silence and also being alone with your thoughts.
It's almost it can be uncomfortable.
It has just been really nice to not be living from screen to screen all the time and instead feeling like i'm living in the real world.
It's also been really nice to just have the space to think, just allowing you to have that designated time.
I know that sounds so weird because creativity is such an organic thing, but we live in such a busy world.
Our schedules are often filled up from like hour to hour.
This is also feeling a lot like a dopamine detox, mainly because I'm doing this like every single day.
Now that I'm doing this experiment, I'm realizing like, how much it actually plays into my daily life.
I think that the more society becomes obsessed with productivity, the more we need to search for small pockets of time to be bored.
But it's not just about doing nothing, but I find it's more so choosing to be observant of the world around you every now and then.
Being left to my thoughts, without media and posts telling me how to feel, and not reaching for a distraction every time I need to fill the silence, but instead embracing it.
Sometimes it feels like boredom can be one of the most undesirable states you can be in.
We go so much out of our way to occupy our time with other work or projects, and maybe there are some things we can learn from it.
All right, so I've been doing this for about a week now.
It got easier as the days went on.
I started to embrace it more.
It's been really interesting to see new ideas and also old ideas, just ponderings that randomly have come up.
One or two hours every afternoon may not seem like a lot, but I think that there's a real compound effect there.
To just be intentional with that time, to embrace this boredom and this mundaneness and see what comes up from that.
We often already have everything we need to think up new ideas or find inspiration around us.
But I think it's a matter of really creating the time to facilitate that.
Not too much and not too little of it, but just enough that, when we do return to our creative work, we feel ready to
So this isn't really a solution or a groundbreaking discovery, but perhaps an alternate perspective on nurturing our creativity.
As Steve Jobs once said, boredom allows one to indulge in curiosity, and out of curiosity comes everything.
