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"There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering," the French novelist Victor Hugo wrote in his book
Les Misérables
in 1862. "A hell of boredom."
It is an observation that apparently remains true even today. In our modern society, boredom is something to be escaped, whether it's with a quick game of Angry Birds or by scrolling through your social media feed.
But perhaps we have got boredom wrong. There is a growing body of research that suggests by not allowing ourselves to be bored once in a while, we may be missing out on something important.
Many of our best ideas come to us during idle moments, such as while commuting to work, or taking a shower or a long walk. In fact, we may be at our most creative when we are bored.
In a study at Pennsylvania State University, psychologists Karen Gasper and Brianna Middlewood found participants who were bored performed better on creativity tests than those who were relaxed or feeling elated. They asked volunteers to watch video clips to evoke certain feelings, before testing their ability to think up words. The researchers found that when asked to think of vehicles, most people say "car," but if someone was bored, their minds might wander, even as far as to respond with "camel".
The most tedious parts of our jobs may be harboring a potential for creativity that might surprise us.
In a series of experiments conducted by psychologists Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman from the University of Central Lancashire in the UK, participants were asked to copy numbers from a telephone book before being asked to think of as many possible uses for a pair of plastic cups as they could. Compared to a control group, those who were given the tedious task beforehand were more inventive.
The researchers say that being in a state of boredom encourages you to explore creative outlets because your brain is signaling that your current situation is lacking and you need to push forward. Letting your mind wander, especially with today's technological distractions, when there's always another email to read and feed to scroll through, is crucial for creativity.
When we daydream, we tap into our subconscious, which is not constrained by a need to put order to things, explains Mann. "Our subconscious is much freer."
She says the key to thinking more creatively is to make sure you have some downtime to allow your mind to wander. While most of us probably have some idle moments in our day, we tend to fill them with social media and email. Instead, Mann suggests scheduling "daydreaming" time or do activities like swimming, where you mind is able to wander without electronic distractions.
It is something that some of the world's most successful business leaders already do – both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates famously schedule in time just to sit and think.
According to Jerome Singer, who has studied positive constructive daydreaming (PCD), a type of mind-wandering, for decades, intentionally allowing your mind to wander like this allows it to access memories and meaningful connections.
It is this ability to fully access our knowledge, memories, experiences, and imagination that helps lead us to those precious "lightbulb" moments when we least expect them, according to Amy Fries, author of
Daydreams at Work: Wake Up Your Creative Powers.
"This calm and slightly detached state, which is the hallmark of daydreaming, helps to 'quiet the noise' so that we can experience the answer or connection," she says.
But to be a better problem solver, Fries advises steering your daydreams away from more personal thoughts and onto the challenges you want to tackle.
She says the best approach to this is to try to actively plant the seed of the problem in your mind by first mulling it over and then tucking it away with the confidence that when you "sleep on it", it will return to the fore when you least expect it.
Boredom may also help us to be more productive. According to Andreas Elpidorou, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Louisville, who has spent years studying the topic, "boredom helps to restore the perception that one's activities are meaningful or significant." He believes boredom acts as a "regulatory state" that can help to motivate us to complete projects.
"In the absence of boredom, one would remain trapped in unfulfilling situations, and miss out on many emotionally, cognitively, and socially rewarding experiences," says Elphidorou. "Boredom is both a warning that we are not doing what we want to be doing and a 'push' that motivates us to switch goals and projects."
For many of us, taking the steps to actively allow ourselves time to feel bored is tricky, and may feel like quite an indulgent measure, but Josh Bersin, a corporate human resources expert and founder of advisory firm Bersin by Deloitte, says "slack time" should be an essential part of modern business.
"Something like 80% of the US stock market capitalization is driven by intellectual property, patents, software - things that are made by people," says Bersin. "It's not driven by oil that is pumped out of the ground or inventory or physical assets, which means that almost every company is in the people business."
"And because people have a need to regenerate if you run people like machines, and you try to minimize their expense, then you don't get the right output."
