“More emerges from doing nothing than from doing all the time.” - Richard Seidl
A few weeks ago I sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Without my smartphone. Forgot it. Everyone else was staring at their screens, scrolling, typing, swiping. I sat there and … well, doing what exactly? I looked out the window. Watched the snow. And after a few minutes something happened: I had an interesting thought. My own. Not the hectic jumping from distraction to distraction we know from everyday life. A calm flow. Suddenly it turned into an idea for a client problem I had been stuck on for weeks. Just like that. Out of nowhere. Or better: out of the emptiness.
The enemy is called boredom
We have declared war on boredom. And we are winning. Everywhere. Every second of idle time gets filled immediately. At the bus stop. On the toilet. In the elevator. Between two meetings: quickly check emails. Waiting for the build: scroll LinkedIn. In the evening on the couch: Netflix in the background while we surf on the tablet and answer WhatsApp messages on the side.
We have become world champions at being busy. Or at least at looking busy. Because busy we are. But more productive? More creative? Happier?
No. We are more exhausted. More overstimulated. And, paradoxically, poorer in ideas.
And with ChatGPT and friends, things get a whole round worse.
The brain in idle mode
Neuroscience has a wonderful term: the default mode network (DMN). It’s the part of our brain that becomes active when we’re not doing anything in particular. When we daydream, stare out the window, go for an absent-minded walk. For a long time, people thought this was wasted time. Today we know: exactly in these moments, essential things happen. The DMN connects experiences, sorts impressions, develops creative solutions. It is basically our internal innovation incubator.
But this incubator needs quiet. It needs emptiness. It needs boredom.
And that’s exactly what we no longer grant it. We feed our brain a constant stream of stimuli, notifications, podcasts, content. No wonder we are running out of big ideas and drowning in the small stuff of daily business instead.
Agile, but burned out
I see it in many of the teams I work with. Rushing from sprint to sprint. Retros get pushed through because the next planning is already waiting. No air to breathe between meetings. From one Teams call straight into the next. Every slot in the calendar is booked. And if an hour happens to be free, it gets filled with “productive” activities right away.
The result? Tired teams. Drained developers. Stressed testers.
My personal boredom practice
Over the years I have built up a few rituals to cultivate my boredom:
- Waiting without distraction: at the checkout, at the bus stop, at the doctor’s. Just doing nothing and watching.
- Running and sport: I used to listen to podcasts while running. To “use” the time. Now I run without AirPods. Instead, I take one question with me on the run.
- Silent driving: in the car without an audiobook or radio.
- Buffers in the calendar: I only do meetings in the afternoon anyway. Mornings are for deep work and quiet.
The courage to be empty
Yes, this sounds like luxury. Who has time for boredom? The backlogs are full, deadlines are pressing, bosses want results. But that is exactly the thinking error. Maybe emptiness is not wasted time but an investment. In creativity. In problem-solving. In our mental health. The best ideas of my life came in moments like these.
So: just give it a try. Put the smartphone away. Close the browser tabs and turn off the background music. Breathe three times and simply look out the window.
And who knows, maybe the solution to your most stubborn problem is already waiting there.