A few weeks ago I was sitting in my home office staring at a blank screen. There was a deadline, a topic that really excited me, and nothing came of it. The writer’s block was suffocating. So I did what I always do when this happens: I closed my laptop, left my phone on the table, and went for a walk. There is no music. No podcasts. Just me, the cool Irish air and the sound of the birds.
After about twenty minutes, with only my own thoughts in the company, the angle I had been looking for appeared. Not gradually. It arrived almost fully formed, as if waiting for me to shut up long enough to hear it.
This is not unusual for me. In fact, some of my best writing has come after periods of doing nothing at all. And I felt guilty about it for a long time. It was lazy, like I was cheating somehow. But it turns out there’s a lot of science and history behind why boredom and loneliness are so closely linked to creative thinking. Once I understood, I stopped feeling guilty and started leaning into it.
Let me explain.
There is something in our brain that the Default mode is networkor DMN for short. This is a network of brain regions that become active when we are not concentrating on what is happening around us. When we daydream, let our minds wander, or simply sit with our thoughts, the DMN kicks in. And this is not idle brain activity. Research published in PubMed Central showed that the DMN is crucial for self-reflection, emotional processing, and mental exploration. It allows the mind to wander and explore different mental scenarios, helping to connect seemingly unrelated concepts.
In other words, when you’re doing “nothing,” your brain is doing some of its most important tasks.
Penn State researchers found something similar. Bored participants performed better on creativity tests than those who were relaxed, elated, or anxious. One of the researchers, Karen Gasper, explained it in a way that stuck with me. He said that if you ask most people to think of vehicles, they will say “car.” But bored people are more likely to say something like “a camel is a vehicle.” Boredom loosens our mental categories. This goes beyond the obvious.
researcher and author, Jeffrey Davis, MA, he called boredom a “varied emotion” that drives us to seek new and different experiences and solutions. Of course, it promotes openness, which is one of the pillars of creative insight.
I think about this a lot in my work. As a writer, I spend most of my days alone. I work from my home office and on a typical day I don’t talk to anyone but my wife. For years I thought it was just an introvert thing, a quirk of my personality that happened to suit freelance writing. But the more I read about this topic, the more I realize that solitude is not only comfortable for me. It’s functional. That’s where the ideas come from.
And I’m far from the only one who has noticed this.
Einstein once wrote“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” He also described her as “a truly solitary traveler” who never lost her “sense of distance and need for solitude.”
Nikola Tesla put it even more sharply. The a 1934 New York Times interviewsaid: “The mind is sharper and sharper in seclusion and unbroken solitude. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, then ideas are born.”
One Article of 1862Henry David Thoreau wrote: “I do not think I can preserve my health and my spirits unless I spend at least four hours a day—and it is generally more than that—in woods, hills, and fields, quite free from all worldly obligations. Charles Darwin also took long walks, and called the road near his house in Kent his own.”way of thinking“.
And then there’s JK Rowling. In 1990, he was stuck on a train that was four hours late from Manchester to London. He didn’t have a pen, a notebook, or even an eyeliner to scribble with. So he just sat there. And in those four hours of forced boredom, the characters of Harry Potter came to life in his mind. No distractions, no input, just your imagination.
Let’s say these are not exceptions. These are a sample.
Well, here’s where I think the modern world is working against us. According to a survey76% of Americans feel uncomfortable leaving their phone at home, 84% check it within the first ten minutes of waking up, and 46% consider themselves “addicted”. In essence, we eliminated boredom from our lives. Every free moment is filled with scrolling, swiping or streaming.
I am guilty of this too. I used to reach for my phone whenever I felt just a hint of mental downtime. Are you waiting for coffee? Phone. Stuck on a sentence? Phone. In bed before bed? Phone. It took me a while to realize that those little pockets of boredom I filled with were exactly the moments my brain needed to do its best creative work.
As a writer, I’ve noticed a direct correlation between how much unstructured alone time I have and how well I perform. On weeks when I’m constantly connected, constantly consuming content, my writing feels flat. Functional but uninspired. On the weeks when I purposely step away, take long walks, or just sit with my thoughts, the writing has more depth. The ideas are more original, the connections more surprising.
John Eastwood, psychologist and co-author Out of my skull: The psychology of boredom, do it right: “In this niche there is a real chance to discover something new.”
We close that gap every time we pick up our phone.
The bottom line is this: boredom is not laziness. Loneliness is not always loneliness. And doing “nothing” is not unproductive. These are the conditions under which the brain does its most original and creative work. Science backs it up, history is full of examples, and if you’re like me, your own experience probably confirms it.
So the next time you find yourself bored, sitting quietly, or staring out the window with nothing to do, resist the urge to fill that space. Let your mind wander. You might be surprised where it takes you.
As always, I hope you found something of value in this post.
Until next time.
