On Boredom: Turning Mundane Moments into Creativity
Although a bit late and out of schedule, this week will be talking about the power of boredom.
I believe one of the first memories I had was due to boredom - thus the appreciation.
I was around 3 years old, standing next to our couch in the kitchen while Mom was cooking. I was bored as f*** standing there, but I had to wait for “reasons”! I recall seeing some random colors dancing in my fieldview, after rubbing my eyes or something. These colors became spaceships landing on the couch, a big space battle was about to start… and then half an hour passed 🙂. Something had sparked my bored toddler mind at such a level that it became a vivid memory!
Personal stories of boredom and inspiration
Throughout the years - ever since my toddler experience - there have been many cases where boredom has served me well, feeding new ideas. Examining these experiences that balance between boredom and inspiration, I’ve noticed specific patterns that work with me:
Going out for a walk or run without listening to a podcast or music. That’s when my mind is free to examine the surroundings, slow down, and discover some weird new connections I couldn’t think of in any other way. There are several cases where such an activity revealed a solution to a problem at work or my side project.
Having a slow morning of aimlessly walking in the house or sitting on the balcony with no distractions (phone or music). I’ve recently noticed the power of slowing down in that way. Usually, there is no new idea popping up during that time, but right after - when the day actually starts - it’s where the benefits and clarity kick in!
Self-introspection days - or hours. Talking about a planned solo trip, or a few hours that you can focus on yourself. This is more of a planned activity, where you clean up your introspection time from external distractions. Limiting distractions you have more space for other stuff; to get bored, to focus on a specific issue you want to tackle. Most of the time, I approach introspection with a preset agenda of items to think/work on. There are other cases, where such ideas simply pop-up, up due to the space created.
Ad-hoc/Grasp the change moments! The requirement for these moments is just to be present. Talking with my kids about boredom as a tool, we agreed to share these two ad-hoc stories that are now father-kids memories ❤️:
Right before leaving for vacation at 12 in the night, we converted a boring/binge YouTube watch activity to our summer playlist. As a family, we watched a series of Save One Song videos and saved that song in our Spotify playlist “Save One Song”; Insta summer hit 2023!!
A lazy afternoon and while we were bored, we improvised a play on the 12 Labours of Hercules - kid B's history lesson for the day. Of course, it was hilarious; of course, we were entertained for a full hour!!
To me, boredom introduces a mundane, zero-noise mindset that leaves your brain free to see clearer the gem ideas trapped in your mind.
Yes, boredom is a tool that works!
It has been many, many years since that first experience and we now know better. When you are bored, you don’t actively think of “stuff”. You are either engaged in a mundane task - or do nothing - leaving your brain free of any thoughts. In that state, your brain is cooling down.
Will share some examples to strengthen the premise around cooldown:
Ray Dalio in the amazing book Principles, writes under Life Principle: “4.3 Understand the great brain battles and how to control them to get what ‘you’ want”: Our greatest moments of inspiration often “pop” up from our subconscious. We experience these creative breakthroughs when we are relaxed and not trying to access the part of the brain in which they decide, .. the neocortex.
Cal Newport covers boredom in Deep Work too, supporting that by excluding boredom even on slow time “People who multitask all the time can’t filter out irrelevancy. They can’t manage a working memory. They’re chronically distracted. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand… they’re pretty much mental wrecks.”
David Kadavy in another awesome book called Mind Management shares this intro story. After explaining a six-week mind block on writing the book, Kadavy has resided in Medellín and had a “conversation; first in full Spanish” with Diego - a local -: I felt as if I had turned over a new leaf. I set my laptop on a desk … had my first breakthrough writing session. What once seemed impossible, now seemed easy. After an hour of writing, I had most of a chapter drafted.
The well-known Archimedes “Eureka!” story. Although it is not accurate, it embodies the power of breakthrough moments in a random moment. It’s the same with Newton’s apple story and the first equations of gravity.
There are many other sources praising the power of meditating, slowing down, or embracing boredom. In a nutshell, if you haven’t tried that already you won’t lose something by trying out to get bored!
As I’ve shared with a certain individual following me here: If you don’t ease your mind from constant thinking; if you don’t relax; How will you have the strength to grow?
I hope you’ve at least tried installing one of those mobile games on your phone ;)
This past week has been extremely full, thus I lost some writing cadence! Yet, I will try to stick to the schedule of releasing weekly.
Interesting read from this past week:
Jason Fried on keeping things simple when introducing changes in your product: https://world.hey.com/jason/keeping-easy-from-becoming-hard-e6af27d0
Basically the Musk Algorithm, reminder due to a new biography released. DHH covers the core of it: https://world.hey.com/jason/keeping-easy-from-becoming-hard-e6af27d0
Follow-ups on Unity’s story with changing terms of use! What the CEO had to say: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23889346/unity-pricing-model-fireside-chat-overview AND the longest standing Unity community shutting doors after 13 years: https://bostonunitygroup.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/index.html
Collaboration and entrepreneurship outside software. I love beers and although Nissos is not one of my favorites, kudos on the expansion abroad: https://www.naftemporiki.gr/english/1517805/nissos-beer-deal-with-carlsberg-and-the-window-for-international-markets/