How Boredom Could Lead to Your Best Idea

Boredom leads us to the “default mode” because it allows our mind to go into the subconscious and start to unearth things we hadn’t realized before. We reflect on our life and subsequently, our goals. The constant strive for multitasking has led us to shift tasks our brain focuses on more rapidly than ever before, and it is harming how we not only focus, but our creativity as well. We’re depleting our brain’s energy levels and wasting it away on being “busy”.

For those that do not know life without connectivity, this could be the most detrimental. Teenagers are less likely to be able to think in creative ways, especially when it comes to their futures or even the global future. And this isn’t setting us up for success, in any way. IBM has identified creativity as the number one criteria for leadership competency.

3 key questions to ask yourself before the video:

1. What happens to you when you get bored?
2. What would happen to you if you never got bored?
3. What could happen if we got rid of boredom entirely?

For Manoush Zomodori, boredom didn’t occur to her as a gift until later on in life. And as someone who has experienced life with and without connectivity, she urged her podcast listeners to join her on a challenge of letting go of their phone addictions—even if it was for a brief period of time.

She calculated that most of us are really attached to our phone, spending around two hours a day using or even just checking this device. As Zomorodi points out, the average person will spend two years of their life on Facebook. And that’s just one app.

Zomorodi’s “Bored and Brilliant” challenge succeeded in decreasing the amount of time people spent on their phone, and increasing the amount of time they spent thinking. A key takeaway from her challenge is for listeners and readers to take a mindful look at their phone habits, and to truly assess if your phone is helping or hindering your waking hours. Instead of being a tool, it’s become a time suck for the majority of us. Install an app that tracks just how much time you’re wasting on your phone, and challenge yourself to step away from the device. Let yourself stare out that window, as Zomorodi advises, and look around yourself more often. As she notes, “by doing nothing, you are actually being your most productive and creative self.”

You never know what you’ll dream up with when you’re left to just your own devices.