Being Bored Make Us More Creative
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2014.901073
- https://clok.uclan.ac.uk/22263/1/22263%20Does%2520being%2520bored%2520make%2520us%2520more%2520creativeV2.pdf
- https://inpact-psychologyconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023inpact144.pdf
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jocb.154
If you take the road less traveled by and choose to not drown out boredom with mindless entertainment, you are rewarded with creativity.
Researchers split participants into two groups - one group was asked to copy phone numbers out of a phone book by hand for 15 minutes while the other group was asked to read them out loud.
Both of these are pretty boring tasks - but reading numbers out loud is considered more boring because you’re not as actively engaged as when you’re writing something down by hand.
In the second stage of the study, the researchers conducted a fluency task where participants had a couple minutes to come up with as many creative uses for like a brick as possible. Like, you could use it to build a wall or a paperweight or a baseball or a bludgeoning weapon or a flower pot whatever. Your imagination is literally the limit.
The study found that both the phone number writing group and the speaking group outperformed the control group who didn’t go through any boredom preconditioning. The people who did the boring tasks first were more creative and productive at creative tasks.
Even more interesting is that the speaking group, you know the group that was supposedly more bored they came up with the longest list of creative uses for the brick. The people who reported that they daydreamed while reading the phone book were the most creative of all.
So what does this tell us?
Boredom enhances creativity - which in turn enhances the value of the work that you produce.