Bored games

I spent a lot of time being bored as a kid.

Long car trips. Doctor’s surgery waiting areas. Department store dressing rooms. The queue at the bank. Childhood was a conga-line of opportunities to “just wait here a sec”.

I rarely complained, however. Mainly because on the few occasions I forgot myself and sighed too heavily or asked when we were going home, I’d be met with phrase no. 17 from the 1983 edition of the official Parenting Handbook: “Only boring people get bored”.

In any case, these interminably dull moments were a gift. I was handed the keys to my inner world. A playground that, once discovered, I could access at any time. I could be anyone, build anything, make up stories and dream up a whole cast of companions.

In that nothingness, I found I had all I needed.

To quote Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder’s version, obviously - the Johnny Depp one was weird and horrifying):

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be.

Kids are really good at that.

As adults, however, we tend to rob ourselves of this opportunity.

The world has been expertly designed to entertain us. Boredom has been villainised; a relic of a slower-paced (read backward) past – something akin to having a tooth pulled without anaesthetic. How on earth did we cope?

But what does this lack of downtime do to our brains? To our collective creativity – particularly for those of us whose job demands it? (Although, let’s face it, whose doesn’t?)

Studies into the effects of boredom on creativity show there’s good reason to seek out tedium. Like, on purpose.

If you assign a group of people a dull chore (eg read numbers from the phonebook, sort out coloured beans or stare at an uninspiring screensaver), then ask them to perform a creative task, they’ll consistently generate more ideas than those who were previously given something more exciting to do.

See, a bored brain is an uncomfortable brain. It will begin to fidget and look out the window. Eventually, it will be forced to get up and grasp about wildly for something to do. That’s when the daydreaming begins. Pretty soon you’re rifling through old memories and making new connections between long-forgotten ideas.

Daydreaming is CrossFit for the mind. And creativity, it would seem, is less of a gift and more of a muscle. One you can strengthen through repetition. And without regular stints of boredom, we risk creative atrophy.

But gifting ourselves this boredom state will require kidnapping our brains back from this cult of busyness.

Look, I’m the first person to advocate people?stuff their minds; it’s the first step in any creative process. But there are two points to make about that.

One: your mind, just like your body, needs a balanced diet.?This high-calorie, low nutrient, must-watch media we snack on is nothing more than mind-McDonalds. Sure, it’s fast, easy and consistent, but it’s also bland and unsatisfying. We’re addicted to the sugar – the dopamine hit that comes with a constant stream of newness. But it doesn’t nourish us.

As much as we tell ourselves it’s essential - no one wants to be irrelevant or out-of-the-loop – I’m kidding myself if I think watching yet another skateboarding pug video will help me write better copy.

Two: we need to stop equating being bored with being unproductive.?It’s causing us to stubbornly avoid the second step of the creative process; allowing the mind time and space to wander.

We need to reframe boredom as just another feeling; neither good nor bad. We probably developed it as a mechanism to save us from fixation; if we never got bored, we’d be forever stuck, examining the first interesting thing we came across.

But how do we overcome our fear and rediscover the riches that lie just beyond that initial discomfort?

For my part, I’m determined to break my way back into that rich inner world I’ve locked myself out of. So, I’m committing to scheduling tedium into my day. (Sad, huh, that it’s come to that?)

Just short sprints at first. No phone. No music. No books. No laptop. Not even a pencil and paper. Just me staring at the wall, until I find my way back in.

Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three…