Can Boredom Make You More Creative? What the Research Says

Vocabulary

Boredom – The feeling of being tired and unhappy because nothing interests you.

Example – Many people feel boredom when they wait in a long line.

Daydream – To let your thoughts drift to pleasant or imaginary things instead of the task in front of you.

Example – Students often daydream during a long, repetitive task and find new ideas.

Creative – Able to think of new and original ideas.

Example – Researchers tested how creative people were after a boring job.

Distraction – Something that pulls your attention away from what you are doing.

Example – A phone is a constant distraction when you want to think quietly.

Mind-wandering – The natural habit of your attention moving away from a task to other thoughts.

Example – Mind-wandering may help you solve a problem you have already been thinking about.

Article

Most people try to avoid boredom. We reach for a phone, open a video or check the news as soon as there is a quiet moment. But some psychologists ask a different question: could a little boredom be useful? Research on this topic is still developing, and the results are interesting but not simple.

One of the best-known studies comes from the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom. According to ScienceDaily, psychologist Dr. Sandi Mann and her colleague Rebekah Cadman ran two experiments. In the first, volunteers spent 15 minutes copying numbers from a telephone directory. Then they were asked to think of as many uses as possible for a pair of polystyrene cups. The people who did the dull task first came up with more ideas than a control group that went straight to the cups.

In the second experiment, one group copied the numbers and another group only read them. Reading is an even more passive job, and the readers produced the most creative ideas. According to ScienceDaily, the researchers explained this by pointing to daydreaming. A task that does not need much thought leaves the mind free to wander, while a task that needs more attention leaves less room for that. Mann said that boredom at work has long been seen as something to remove, but that we might do better to accept it.

Later work added more support. According to Time, a study published in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries asked people to sort beans by color. Afterward, these participants produced more creative ideas, both in number and in quality, than people who had first done an engaging craft activity. Time also notes that Mann has written a book on the subject, called The Upside of Downtime.

Other researchers have studied the same idea under a different name: mind-wandering. Scientific American reported on a study led by Benjamin Baird and Jonathan Schooler at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In it, 145 students first listed unusual uses for everyday objects such as toothpicks and hangers. Then they took a 12-minute break. Some students rested, some did a demanding memory task, some did an easy reaction-time task that lets thoughts drift, and some had no break at all. When they returned to the same problems, the group that did the easy task improved by 41 percent. The other groups did not improve.

There is an important limit in that study. According to Scientific American, mind-wandering did not help with brand-new problems. Baird said it was useful mainly for problems people were already thinking about. This suggests that a quiet, unfocused mind may work in the background on something you have started, but it may not be a general way to become more creative.

The research also leaves some questions open. ScienceDaily noted that it is not yet clear whether workplace boredom helps with job-related creativity, or whether the effect carries over to personal projects such as writing. Most of these experiments were also short and used small tasks in a lab, so everyday life may be different. A boring afternoon at a desk is not the same as a ten-minute experiment, and being very bored for a long time is not pleasant for most people.

This is where phones come into the story. According to Time, Mann says that constant phone use may actually make us more likely to feel bored. In her words, we try to swipe and scroll the boredom away, but in doing so we make ourselves more prone to boredom. She argues that when we never let our minds wander, we give them no chance to solve problems on their own. This is her view, and it is worth remembering that the experiments above did not test smartphones directly.

Mann’s practical advice is simple. Time reports that she suggests low-concentration activities such as walking, swimming or sitting with your eyes closed, without music or other input. She also recommends resisting the phone while waiting in a line, sitting in a meeting or relaxing in a waiting room. She makes a clear distinction, too. Real boredom is different from purposeful relaxation such as yoga or meditation.

So what should we take from all this? The facts are fairly clear: in several experiments, people who did a dull or undemanding task first later performed better on idea-generation tests. The explanations, such as daydreaming, are reasonable but still being studied. And the ideas about phones are opinions and predictions rather than proven results. Some people may find that their best ideas arrive in the shower or on a walk. Others may say they think best with a podcast on, and nothing in this research proves they are wrong.

Perhaps the most useful lesson is a modest one. If you are stuck on a problem, a short, quiet break without a screen is a low-cost experiment. It may help, and if it does not, you have lost very little. For many people, the real challenge is not finding boredom. It is allowing it to happen for even a few minutes.

Discussion

What kinds of tasks or situations make you feel bored most often?

How do you usually fill a short waiting time, such as standing in a queue or waiting for a bus?

Which activities help your mind wander in a useful way?

What was the last good idea you had when you were not trying to think of one?

How might a workplace make space for quiet, low-pressure time without losing productivity?

What do you think the research on phones and boredom still needs to show before we can trust the claims?

How could you plan a short screen-free break in your own day, and what would you hope to gain from it?

Sources

ScienceDaily: Being bored at work can make us more creative

Scientific American: Allowing the Mind to Wander Aids Creativity

Time: Being Bored Can Be Good for You—If You Do It Right