My son went over to a friends house this afternoon, when my wife had been planning on helping him with his French homework. This meant she had an hour or so of unexpected free time. Momentarily at a loss, she asked me what she should do, and my reply was “slack off”, meaning do something fun and creative instead of doing housework or whatever. Take a break! She jokingly replied that slacking off wasn’t on her to-do list, so she wouldn’t even know how to start.
But as with every joke, there’s more than a kernel of truth to it. We often get so busy with stuff that we’ve got to do, that we don’t leave enough time to slack, to get bored, or to simply do nothing. And that’s a pity, because do-nothing time is often among the most creative times. It’s when your mind wanders aimlessly that you find inspiration for that upgrade to the z-stage on your laser cutter, or whatever the current back-burner project of the moment is.
You don’t get bored when you’re watching TV, playing video games, or scrolling around the interwebs on your phone, and it’s all too easy to fall into these traps. To get well and truly bored requires discipline these days, so maybe putting “slack” into your to-do list isn’t a bad idea after all. My wife was right! And that’s why I volunteered to take my son to parkour on Sundays – it’s and hour of guaranteed, 100% uninterruptible boredom. How do you make sure you get your weekly dose of slack?
walk an iguana
When you consume the lizard you see through the eyes of the lizard. Be walked by the iguana
Zoe Quinn once said that anyone can walk into a bar and punch a beekeeper, but it doesn’t make them very tough.
What have you got against apiarists?
Willem dafoe once spake, he who has done unto thee has theed upon he.
This article reads like Elliott slacked off the whole week.
When I’m bored I like to work on improving Wikipedia. Unlike all those pathetic losers using TikTok, my work benefits all mankind and I will be remembered for that once I’m gone. As it is written in the Book, death and taxes are the two things that are certain in life.
Condescendance, delusion of grandeur, and wishful thinking all in the same message.
Yeah, plus spelling errors.
…And then there was the message you were replying to.
Improving the capability of sharks carrying better lasers.
For a non-peer reviewed, and biased thing?Uh No you won’t.
I’m still sad that all the Wikipedia links of my name (Hackaday, Dr. Dobb’s, DOS Extenders, maybe a few more) are still dead links.
Totally agree!
Whilst commenting was horrible, it was a regular time to be bored.
*commuting. Blasted autocorrect!
On the whole I prefer working from home, but the regular bored time or time to read on the train was good.
I remember a Veritasium video explaining that creativity does indeeded happens when we are bored, meaning that the brain is totally at rest.
Meditation.
The problem with me and meditation is like: Ok I’m gonna meditate….now what?…. meditate on what?….Ok put your mind in blank… put it! ..now! ..wondering if I’m meditating right now??… damn I’m thinking!…then I simply stand up and do something else.
I spend about an hour each day just sitting in silence. No phone. No tasks. Just vegging on the couch or in a chair.
Thinking, imagining. Drifting in a semi nap-like state.
I’ve noticed it bothers a lot of people. They either get hellbend on insisting I take a “proper nap” or repeatedly offer to entertain me somehow by playing games or watching something together. Even my partner took close to 8 years before finally giving up on attempting to entertain, offer to let me go nap and/or otherwise “do something” when I go into this state.
Daydreaming is fun and I find it reduces my stress levels significantly. I wish more people understood this.
I tried similar thing last year. Usually I keep Pokemon Red soundtrack running 24/7 to keep my mind occupied. I tried to better focus on some coding problems.
When I disabled air conditioning, turned off all my computers, disabled ambient sound etc. I thought I’ll have the perfect silence.
After about an hour I heard my 60 years old obese male neighbour masturbating 😯 Ah the wonders of living in an apartment block from the 1970s. It quickly reminded me why I keep Pokemon soundtrack running even when I sleep.
I also tried buying a pack of earplugs and Peltor earmuffs. While I mostly got the silence I wanted, I also started getting schizophrenia-like symptoms so that experiment ended quickly.
In a paradoxical manner, I did read that masturbating can contribute to a better sleep and even a healthier life. Anyway I gotta go, I must to something… lol jk…( but I keep the sacred right to not joke. )
When I turn everything off my ears fill in the silence with EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Tinnitus sucks.
I noticed a small volume variation with the heartbeat, and now I wonder if I might be able to hear my blood pressure. Meanwhile I assume a too high gain drift of my ears for any calibration to be useful. On the other hand my brain dumps the EEEEE into the noise filter, if I don’t listen to it, so I honestly can’t tell if it is “always on” or just sometimes, which helps in everyday life but not for calibration…
The Nothing Box – “A tale of 2 brains”. (on youtube)
Parkour!
When I am board I go back to working on the turbo mod for my Mark IV Encabulator.
Being bored is normally thought of as being a rather negative state of mind. Some of my day job is boring, but I mostly overcome it by planning things I’m gonna do in my night job. A colleague also gets bored … and trust me … it makes him miserable. I suggested he tries to make the most of his ‘off’ time by doing stuff that he really enjoys so that he’s got some interesting things to reflect on, but it does not seem to be working out too well for him at present. A very small amount of boredom is only useful as being a kick up the arse to get off one’s arse and do something worthwhile. Prolonged boredom is hell.
How dare you write this article and interrupt my bored time! Who knows what good idea I now haven’t had…
Seriously though only worth having so much down time – too much and you end up with more ideas than you can deal with, and/or depression…
I don’t have time to be bored it seems like. Between work/family, R/C building/flying, computer projects (have a few that I am bouncing between), and some time on on-line sites like this one…. seems like always something to do. Now once in awhile I will read a good western/fantasy/scifi book which is how I like to relax…
When I’m bored (which is all too rare) I read HaD.
“Welcome to the Internet” by Bo Burnham.
Military taught one thing – when/if you get uninterrupted solid hour, instantly fall asleep. Same military that taught to chew now, digest later.
There is no shortage of projects that had to be put on indefinite hold due to family obligations. If anything, I wish I had uninterrupted year of fully paid time so that I can catch up with everything – kind of like what EU countries have.
Refugees welcome
I got bored once. A little while later I had the Peedy Microsoft Agent character singing Row Your Boat in a round on 3 different machines coordinated by callbacks.
Weird things happen when I get bored.
👍
When I get bored, I sort my screws.
Satisfactory player.
You don’t get bored when you’re watching TV? Wow you must have some amazing channels.
We use our living room TV to watch Netflix movies and not much else, which kind of disqualifies it as a TV – streaming movies from them internets.
Over-the-air programs as of late were surprisingly dull, local news, weather, and that’s about all. Oh, there is also nostalgia TV where they rerun all the old movies, but that’s about the variety we get (the Wash/DC based transmission of pretty good japanese NHK propaganda channel had its transmitting power dialed down, so we no longer can catch that – and it was rather good programming compared with quickly fading PBS/NPR – both were fading into obscurity long time ago, mostly due its own mismanagement, if anything else).
What does it feel like to be bored? Seriously. There’s tons of studies on actual boredom and most of the time boredom is not the same for each individual. Looking at the comments this is certainly true.
Is it that the task you’re doing is menial, is it that you’re procrastinating or not using your grey matter to it’s capacity, or in actual fact it’s likely your body is in a period of high energy but your brain isn’t. You could be hungry, thirsty or unable to distinguish how you feel.
Are you in a sensory deprivation tank maybe?
Next time you’re bored, resist the urge to pick up your phone and sit in it. Ask yourself how does it feel, physically, mentally, emotionally and take a minute to breathe. It could be you need a minute to adjust and gather your thoughts or youre in fact mentally exhausted.
There’s nothing I love more than being alone with my thoughts. As a parent…this experience is worth more than all the world’s gold and precious gems combined.