Did You Know Boredom Can Lead to Brilliant Ideas?

Since 2019, I have maintained my Leadership and Values in Action blog with updated posts related to job searching and personal development. I used to sit at my laptop for 7 or 8 hours a day, trying to brainstorm topics, while writing cover letters for jobs, researching places to work, updating resumes, hunting for new jobs on the internet, and any other task I could find to fill my day.

And it was mentally exhausting.

It was so exhausting that I quickly burned out on filling my day with these keep-busy tasks. At the time, I was equating keeping busy with feeling productive. But it was actually quite the opposite.

I was less productive in the task I needed to be the most creative — writing a blog that I published 3 times per week.

I believed I could multitask my way into being creative. I was wrong. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

On my own, I realized that I needed to restructure my day — and fill it with more mindless tasks. Instead of focusing on brainstorming on the laptop, I would take walks around Boston. Window-shop at the mall during the summer. Watch re-runs of my favorite television shows in the morning. And any of the endless tasks around that apartment that didn’t require all of my attention.

And I found myself revisiting times in my life when I wished I had done something differently. Or wished I had known something before I made a decision that…