TGG018: How to Unlock Your Creativity

Hint: Doing nothing may be the most productive thing you can do

FOCUS OF THE WEEK: Why You Need Boredom (Now) to Access Your Best Self

Who are you without the doing?
Read it again: who are you without the doing? This question was recently posed to listeners in Hurry Slowly, a podcast about slowing down. I thought, then thought some more, but couldn’t come up with a good answer. I’d forgotten how to just be. Like most of you, I found boredom as appealing as biting into grapefruit after brushing my teeth. People have long shared this collective fear of being alone with our thoughts. So when the iPhone came along, it quickly morphed from a device for staying connected to a shield for warding off boredom. Every unscheduled moment of the day has become time that could be spent listening to a podcast or catching up on group chats. Waiting for your omelette to cook? Grab phone. Biding time until your date returns from the bathroom? Grab phone. We must be doing things at all times, because boredom is for those without ambition. Right?


Not according to smart people. 
Boredom has recently become, dare I say, cool. Fine, it may not have the hype of tie dye sets or the entertainment value of Bachelorette contestants on Tik Tok, but it’s become a hot topic amongst researchers and academics. Just ask the attendees of London’s Boring Conference, who congregate annually to talk all things tedium. Yes, doormats are one of the topics they discuss. And no, I cannot think of a conference afterparty I’d rather crash.

The reason brilliant minds are studying boredom is best explained by Andrew Smart in his book Autopilot, “While our minds are exquisitely evolved for intense action, in order to function normally our brains also need to be idle — a lot of the time, it turns out.” Constant busyness takes a toll, manifesting in burnout, stress-related diseases, and anxiety disorders. Millennial burnout is particularly troubling.

Our brain, like an airplane, has an autopilot, which we enter during boredom and which prompts our most creative self. “The autopilot knows where you really want to go, and what you really want to do. But the only way to find out what your autopilot knows is to stop flying the plane, and let your autopilot guide you. Just as pilots become dangerously fatigued while flying airplanes manually, all of us need to take a break and let our autopilots fly our planes more of the time,” Smart writes.

Hey Alexa, define “boredom.” 
Manoush Zomorodi wrote a book called Bored and Brilliant, so I’ll let her take the reins. It’s that moment when you’re like, "I'm not doing anything. I don't have a focused activity for my brain and my mind is beginning to wander and I'm just going to look at my phone." But boredom is more complex than it seems. Boredom is not some passive thing; it’s a real, unpleasant sensation. Boredom doesn’t mean “nothing," but rather a lot of subtle pain. Research found that people actually prefer giving themselves electric shocks to being alone with their thoughts. Tough look! As author and philosopher Yuval Harari notes, it’s harder for people to deal with this subtle kind of pain than the heroic pain of working through a crisis. 

Boredom, as it turns out, is amazing. When you’re bored — folding shirts, going for a walk without your phone, doing something highly repetitive that doesn’t require your brain to be engaged — you actually ignite this network in your brain called the "default mode." Neuroscientists know that this default, or autopilot, is where you do your most original thinking. Your imagination lights up, you connect ideas, have empathy, solve problems. Your mind does this wild thing called autobiographical planning, during which you essentially time travel, going back and taking note of big moments, making sense of them and extracting lessons. You create your personal narrative.

Just last week while on a long walk, memories of my struggles with late night binge eating, that for so long had been tightly locked inside the box labeled “Shame” in my mind, completely resurfaced. For the first time, I made sense of these moments and how they came to shape who I am today. Like cleaning your apartment, going deep into your mind is going to result in you digging up some not so pretty sh*t. But in the end, you’re one step closer to knowing yourself. And you can’t know what you need in life until you figure out who you are. 

What’s the rush?
Yuval Harari is terrified of how unplugged we are from our own minds. Back in the time of kingdoms, when people traded salt and the closest thing to getting ghosted was finding out your boyfriend was mummified, there were no repercussions if you didn’t spend time getting to know yourself. But today, there are massive corporations that have the time and money to get to know you. And the moment these companies get to know you better than you know yourself, it’s game over. Your feelings, opinions, decisions? Hackable. If you don’t spend time exploring your mind, then people with a hell of a lot of skin in the game will. Think I’m being dramatic? Just remember how many minds were hacked leading up to our last election and the ripple effects that followed.

Look, I live in San Francisco. There is nothing more subversive than saying we need to make space for boredom. We’ve become used to developing all kinds of futile busyness for ourselves, because if we’re not “hustling,” we must be slacking. But we’re confusing reactivity with productivity. Greatness is not measured by the number of times per day you post a photo or comment on someone’s status. Consider Jay Shetty’s humbling analogy: imagine someone sped past you. If you asked that person where they were going and they didn’t have a clue, you’d think they were crazy for going nowhere fast. We are a society with our foot on the pedal and no destination in mind.

Confession: I never get bored.. 
You’re not alone. After all, there’s Ozark to be watched and Sourdough to be baked. We’re supposed to like these things; our brains get a hit of dopamine from new and novel experiences. Here’s the catch: every time we busy ourselves and blow off boredom like it’s some back-up prom date, we’re training our brains to expect stimuli every time boredom comes knocking. Former Good Grind subject Cal Newport explains the implications. When it comes time to do something hard, which 99% of the time will involve boredom, your brain won’t tolerate it. You’ll finally decide to write that article, only to find yourself staring blankly at the sheet of paper in front of you. The great paradox? The best way to handle boredom is to allow more of it in.

It’s no coincidence that many of our most creative thinkers, like Beethoven and Thoreau, regularly took walks. It’s the same reason why Yuval Harari takes an annual 60-day silent vipassana meditation retreat. It’s about taking mental inventory and organizing your thoughts. It’s making space to know yourself better and develop the kind of mental flexibility that allows for constant reinvention. 

So how does one “do” nothing?
The Dutch have a term called “niksen,” which literally means to do nothing, to be idle. Unlike mindfulness, which focuses on being present in the moment, niksen is about intentionally carving out space just to be. Psychologist Doreen Dodgen-Magee likens niksen to a car whose engine is running but isn’t going anywhere. Start by channeling niksen. 

Drop the fear of being perceived as lazy. Like the anti-fat movement or frosted tips (I’m looking at you, finance guys on Hinge), this trend shall pass. After all, science has proven idleness to be important for our health. Start small, taking advantage of convenient opportunities for boredom, like going for a short run or mowing the lawn. One rule I’ve been adhering to is no devices while in transit. While I’m walking Riggins, for instance, my phone is out of sight.

During conversations with others, allow space for boredom. Especially when communicating over phone or video, there’s that external pressure to fill every moment of the conversation. Think about the last deep, insightful conversation you had. You know, the kind that leaves you feeling like you’ve just jumped in a cold lake and awakened all your senses. Chances are there were periods of boredom within that conversation, during which your mind dipped and wandered and connected thoughts, before surfacing with insights. 

While you’re making space for your mind to wander, be gentle with yourself. Remember, companies like Twitter have troops of engineers whose job is to get your attention. We are individuals up against armies. Think of boredom like going on a hike. There are moments when you’re going to feel hot, thirsty, tired, inconvenienced. But you’ll never reach the beautiful parts without the boring and often painful bits first. Boredom isn’t always pleasant, but it’s worth hanging on until you reach the other side.

Think of all that’s to gain. The problem used to be that we didn’t have enough information. Now we’re standing in front of floodgates, drowning in information and never actually doing anything with it. It’s easy to say, “Homelessness in San Francisco is a disaster.” But what are you doing about it? Does that mean you’re going to propose a program to lawmakers? Our world is facing massive problems. Pandemics, climate change, food security. There’s a reason why CEOs overwhelmingly agree that creativity is vital to success moving forward. If we want our futures and our children’s futures to be brighter than the dumpster fire we’re experiencing now, we’re going to need a lot of free-thinking people with diverse views to come together and form solutions. 

So, who are you without the doing?

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
- Mark Twain

Hungry for more boredom?

Kathryn Vigilante