Try this: stand in a queue for two minutes without reaching for your phone. Harder than it sounds, isn’t it? We’ve become extraordinarily good at never being bored — and in the process we may have thrown out something quietly valuable.

Here’s the case for boredom: it’s uncomfortable, yes, but it’s also the mental state where your mind wanders, links distant ideas, and hands you your best thinking. Eliminate boredom completely and you quietly starve your own creativity.

What boredom actually is

Boredom is what you feel when you’re under-stimulated and casting about for something worth your attention. And here’s the interesting part: when your mind isn’t occupied by a task, it doesn’t switch off — it switches to a different mode. Psychologists call it the default mode network: the wandering, daydreaming, memory-mixing state where the brain quietly connects ideas in the background. Boredom is the on-ramp to that state.

The real benefits of boredom

It sparks ideas

There’s a reason ideas ambush you in the shower, on a walk, or as you’re falling asleep — all moments when you’re mildly bored and your mind is free to roam. Give a problem to your unoccupied brain and it keeps working on it without you. In one well-known study, people who spent a break on an undemanding, mind-wandering task went on to perform better on a creativity test than those who powered straight through — an effect psychologists call creative incubation. Fill every gap with input and that background processing never gets the chance.

It points you toward what matters

Boredom is a signal. It’s your mind saying, “this isn’t worth my attention — find something that is.” Left alone, that restlessness nudges you toward making, exploring, and seeking meaning. Numb it instantly with a feed and you never hear the message.

It restores your attention

A constant drip of stimulation fragments your focus. Boredom — a few minutes of doing nothing in particular — is rest for your attention, the way a quiet room is rest for your ears. You come back sharper.

Your best ideas rarely arrive while you’re busy. They arrive when you finally stop.

How we accidentally killed boredom

The culprit is in your pocket. Every micro-gap that used to invite a wandering mind — the queue, the lift, the walk, the two minutes waiting for the kettle — now gets filled instantly with a screen. It feels like a win against dead time. But those gaps were where a lot of your thinking quietly happened. No gaps, no wandering; no wandering, fewer ideas.

How to let yourself be bored again

• Leave the phone behind sometimes. Walk to the shop or sit with a coffee without it. Let the gap stay a gap.
• Take a walk with no inputs. No podcast, no music. Just you and whatever your mind gets up to. This is where a lot of people do their best thinking.
• Single-task. Do one thing at a time and let the dull stretches be dull. Boredom during a task often precedes a breakthrough in it.
• Keep a capture note. Wandering pays off only if you catch what it surfaces. Jot the idea down, then go back to doing nothing.
• Protect a little white space. A few unscheduled, unstimulated pockets in your week are where ideas come to find you.

Frequently asked questions

Is boredom actually good for you?

In moderation, yes. Short stretches of boredom give your mind room to wander, which supports creativity, problem-solving and attention. It’s chronic boredom, not the occasional kind, that’s worth avoiding.

Why do good ideas come when I’m bored?

Because an unoccupied mind slips into a wandering mode that connects ideas in the background. Boredom frees up the mental space where those connections happen.

How do I get comfortable being bored?

Start small — a two-minute queue without your phone, a short walk with no audio. The discomfort fades quickly, and the mental payoff shows up soon after.

If boredom surfaces an idea and you’re still stuck on it, try these ways to get out of a creative rut. And for why this matters more as machines do more of our thinking, see will AI replace creatives? or browse Perspectives.