Get even more bored to create better
Boredom isn't the problem. It's the solution. In a world designed to capture every moment of downtime, reclaiming unstructured time is one of the most creative and disruptive things we can do.
There’s a phrase I often hear in teams, companies, and organizations: “We need more creativity.” And it’s almost always accompanied by an extremely packed schedule and a calendar with no open slots for several weeks.
How can we foster creativity when we don’t have time? Let’s explore some scattered insights from science and philosophy.
The Business of Not Letting You Think
Before we talk about the brain, we need to mention something that works in the opposite direction: digital platforms have a business model built on capturing every available pause. Every moment of waiting, every minute between tasks, every time boredom rears its head—there’s a notification, a scroll, a short video ready to fill that space.
This isn’t a coincidence—it’s designed that way. And that design comes at a huge cost to our creative capacity, because boredom isn’t wasted time. It’s the time when the brain does its most interesting work.
A brain that never stops doesn’t create
Neuroscience has identified a brain network that activates precisely when we’re not doing anything in particular: the Default Mode Network. It’s the one that kicks in when we look out the window, when we go for a walk with no destination in mind, when we’re bored.
For a long time, it was considered “noise.” Today we know that it is the brain’s generative engine: the place where unexpected connections are formed, where an idea from one domain intersects with a problem from another, where the new, the unique, and the creative are born.
Boredom is not the absence of thought. It is thought in its freest form, and the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han put it precisely in *The Society of Fatigue*: scattered attention and intolerance for tedium prevent us from reaching the “deep boredom that would be of some importance to a creative process.” He wrote this more than a decade ago. Today, with our phones in our hands all day long, that observation is more urgent than ever.
What We Lost Without Realizing It
As children, boredom was a resource. No algorithm could fill it. So we invented things: games with whatever was at hand, unscripted stories, worlds with rules we made up ourselves. Those empty spaces were, in reality, spaces of pure creation. We didn’t have a name for it. But something real was happening: the brain, with no external stimuli to process, turned inward and began to build.
Today, that space barely exists. And the curious thing is that we have to reclaim it intentionally, because it no longer appears on its own.
Breaking out of the routine isn’t a luxury
There’s another element that’s often underestimated: novelty. When we break out of our routine—when we expose ourselves to different environments, conversations, or experiences—the brain activates its exploration circuits and forms associations that wouldn’t exist in our usual context.
It’s no coincidence that many of the best ideas come to us while traveling, during unexpected conversations, or after a weekend of unplugging. I experience this often. The connections that truly made a difference rarely came about while staring at a screen during work hours. They happened on a beach while drinking mate, during a conversation that started off on a different topic, or in the middle of a walk without headphones.
And there’s something else that happens when we step away from the noise: we find ourselves. First, we find ourselves—that inner voice we can’t hear when everything is filled with distractions. And then we truly connect with others, without the screen acting as a mediator. Discovering an unexpected side of someone you’ve known for years, or recognizing yourself in an unplanned conversation, is one of the most refreshing experiences there is. Otherness—when there’s room to find it—teaches us things that no content can teach.
Today, doing nothing is a disruptive act
I don’t think playfulness has disappeared. We gradually left it behind, convinced that growing up meant taking everything veeeery, way too, seriously.
Going for a walk without music. Having a coffee without looking at your phone. Doing something with your hands without a screen nearby. Letting the bus ride be just that. In the culture of productivity and the attention economy, these things almost sound like a statement of principles. And in a way, they are.
We’re not lacking creativity, but we’re not giving it the conditions it needs to thrive. Rediscovering boredom isn’t nostalgia or performative digital disconnection. It’s understanding how the brain works and deciding, with that information, how we want to live and work.
The next time you feel like you’re “not being productive,” maybe your brain is doing exactly what it needs to do. 🌱
See you next time! P.S.: If you’re interested in cultural awareness and how to empower multicultural teams, I invite you to follow me on Substack. Subscribe here and get every new post in this series instantly. 🚀🌍