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.
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.
Improving the capability of sharks carrying better lasers.
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.
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.
Parkour!
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…