Can Boredom Enhance Creativity?
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
This post will be focused on the role of mind-wandering and daydreaming in the creation of insights during the creative process.
Before we start, let’s have a quick recap: we define creativity as a “novel idea that has a value”. If the idea isn’t new it is certainly not creative, but if the idea doesn’t also bring value we would label it more as original rather than creative. Even though the creative process is still for the most part a mystery, we can grossly divide it into 4 main stages: preparation, incubation, insight, and execution.
The period of incubation is the one where we ponder our problem in the unconscious until a flash of insight decides to cross our minds. Unfortunately, we can’t consciously choose when to be creative or unlock that insight more than we choose when to fall asleep. Much like sleeping, you might have all the right pieces in the right place, but when it comes down to having an idea, you just have to let it happen.
That doesn’t mean we can’t take partial control of the process. And regarding creativity, can boredom be one of our assets? The short answer is: that might be the case. Although the science is still very young, there seems to be a logic behind creative insight, and it starts with boredom and mind-wandering.
I don’t need to explain to you what boredom feels like, but I can show you the conditions for it. Boredom happens when there is a mismatch between our high level of arousal relative to the energy required by the task at hand. In other words, when we are awake and ready, but nothing especially interesting or challenging is happening.
Even during moments of boredom, our brains are never still. Whenever we feel under-stimulated and bored, our brain switches to what is called the default mode network. This network in the brain is active whenever a person is no longer engaged with the external world and can stall in a place of wakeful rest. During unengaging, boring moments, our minds disconnect from the outside world and turn inward, we start ruminating and daydreaming. We unconsciously start thinking about other people, about ourselves, about our relationships, about particular events of our past, we start imagining the future and other possibilities, we imagine “what if?”. All of this happens without a real aim or purpose, it’s just free-floating thoughts in the sea of our mind. It is basically what we all do under the shower.
This part of the brain seems to act in perfect contrast with another one: the central executive network, which is involved with planning, working memory, goal-orientation, and sustained attention.
The complicated way these two networks dance with each other can help us find the creative idea we were or were not looking for, and investigate it further. Whenever we are bored, our brain is desperately looking for stimulation, and if we can’t find it in our environment we’ll try to create it. When our mind finds an interesting thought, the salience network (salient means noticeable or important) helps to switch back our daydreaming state to a more goal-planning oriented state.
Boredom and the default mode network help you self-reflect and assess, exploring more possibilities, stretching your thinking, and help you see the big picture. If and when we find something interesting, we then zoom in to that idea and elaborate it better.If you want to see what that looks like:
A study was done by Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman to help test the hypothesis that a bit of boredom can make you temporarily more creative. Here’s how that played out: different groups of people were given a boring task, like rewriting the numbers on a phone book or simply reading the phone book. After 15 minutes of this activity, they were given a limited amount of time to imagine as many creative ways a plastic cup may be used for. In comparison to the control group, the bored groups averagely gave a larger quantity and more interesting alternatives.
So, yes, being bored may inadvertently help you find that perfect solution to your problem or that perfect answer to your last argument. The main drawback is that being bored is also an unpleasant experience, not terribly bad mind you, but nasty enough to be something we actively try to avoid. In this way, boredom can also help us be productive. Whenever we have an unpleasant task we need to get done, we often push it aside because what we are doing is generally always more pleasant and stimulating. If we feel bored though, we’ll do almost anything to make that feeling go away, even cleaning our bathroom, or hurting ourselves. We have a strong compulsion to do something, anything, rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.
In another study of boredom, participants were instructed to just stay alone in an empty room for 15 minutes, with really nothing to do except entertaining themselves with their own thoughts. To test how at what length people will go to for the sake of avoiding boredom, they were also left with the possibility to press a button that would give them an electric shock. It was made clear that nobody was forcing them to press it, it was completely up to them. Despite a previous experiment, where they showed a willingness to pay to avoid the same shock, during this experiment 67% of men and 25% of women voluntarily shocked themselves at least once for no real reward. They decided that inflicting themselves pain was a better alternative than to remain 15 minutes alone with their thoughts.
The take-away is: being productive is great, staying active is fun and rewarding, but we also need to remember that the more time we spend “doing” the less time we spend “thinking”, and we might get caught into solving the problems at hand while missing the big picture.
Being bored is an asset that we can strategically use to make us more creative, more self-reflective, and even more productive. But boredom is a feeling we try to avoid at all costs, and avoiding it is never been easier than now. There is always more entertainment out there to help alleviate it: new games we can bring anywhere with our phone, new tv shows, news feeds, books and blog posts to read (awkward), music, you name it.
Unless we decide to consciously make up time to think, there will never be. I’m not saying that you should isolate yourself in the mountains to meditate. But I’m encouraging you the next time you take the bus or train (or go to the toilet) to take away the music and all distractions and sit still with yourself for 10-20 minutes. Let your mind wander and self-reflect, see what you get out of it, even if it’s something small.
I realize the irony of writing a post basically telling you why you should stare at a white wall rather than reading my stuff. But you know what? I’ve never been a good marketing strategist. I hope you found it useful or interesting nonetheless.
Sorry for draining you creative energies
Today’s topic will be about the learning process. I want to describe and investigate the learning process that takes place in mastering a craft, and hopefully help the readers understand better their own journey—where they are now, where they are going, and how to get there.