I watched an interesting Ted Talk the other day by Chris Bailey, “How to get your brain to focus”.   My own key take-away was the potential of leveraging boredom to sharpen your mind.

This led me to research the topic further.  It turns out there is strong scientific evidence that the brain is more active and open to the development of ideas and plans in what is termed the default mode (i.e., boredom).

Not Natural

Given the opportunity for boredom to result in positive thinking and creative, innovative ideas simply by being bored, I wondered why boredom is typically avoided.

Our natural inclination is to be overloaded.  Attention spans are guided by the need for hyper-activity in our brains.  This is how we are genetically wired as a species.

In fact, bouncing from one activity to another or even conducting a number of activities in parallel (multitasking) is easier for us to do than being in a situation without anything in particular to do.

When we are not focused on our surroundings or feel that a day or period is dull or tedious our minds tend to wander.  They do not shut down, in fact, studies have shown in these situations brain activity actually increases.

Boredom with Regularity

In his Ted Talk Chris suggests we sharpen our minds through the practice of boredom for an hour each day.   He suggests his own experience was a significant increase in the developing of ideas and creating plans on how to make them a reality.

In short, he believed, for him, it really works.  Avoiding boredom can be in fact counter-productive.  Not sure if I like the concept because I am lazy or because it is a good idea,  but I am definitely giving it a try.