Creativity Requires Quiet.

Why filling every moment of your attention is sapping your creativity, your ability to concentrate and your enjoyment of Now.

Nov 10, 2024

Bathe Yourself In Boredom

I have a confession to make: Something I realised I was doing wrong this year (aside from misusing the word brat) was filling every moment of time with doing something.

Until recently, I was that person at the gym who couldn't bear the sound of their own footsteps. You know the type— perpetually connected to a podcast feed like it's an IV drip of derpamine, frantically tapping through Angry Birds on the subway as if their life depended on toppling those precarious pig fortresses.

The crown jewel of my constant-stimulation addiction? My trusty AirPods, which had practically fused to my ear canals. I'd developed an almost Pavlovian response to silence, reaching for them with the desperation of a caffeine addict at 6 AM. My brain had become a 24/7 drive-through for other people's thoughts, with my own ideas reduced to sleeping in the parking lot.

The thing about mainlining content is that your brain never gets a moment to digest it all. Think about it: when was the last time you just... sat there? No Netflix background noise while coloring your art, no podcast during your shower (where your phone teeters precariously on the sink), no music drowning out the mundane symphony of everyday life.

Cal Newport dropped a nugget in The New York Times that hit uncomfortably close to home. He talks about "embracing boredom" in his book Digital Minimalism, suggesting that our brains are essentially turning into stimulation junkies. Every time we whip out our phones at the first hint of boredom, we're training our minds to be as focused as a puppy in a tennis ball factory.

The math was brutal: 90% of my waking hours were spent with something streaming into my ears, and the remaining 10% was my poor brain gasping for air, trying to make sense of it all. Sleep wasn't even a refuge— my dreams were probably podcasts at that point.

Here's where the plot twist comes in: I started meditating again. Not because I suddenly became enlightened but because I needed to prove to myself that I could sit still without reaching for my phone like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

Boredom isn't the enemy we think it is. It’s essential.

It's more like that slightly awkward friend who always ends up having the best stories. When you're not constantly drowning out your thoughts with Tim Ferriss's latest life hack or whatever Netflix show everyone's bingeing, your mind starts making these wild connections. It's like your brain finally gets to speak up at the dinner table after being shushed for months.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way: creativity needs silence, like a plant needs space to grow. Do you know why your best ideas come in the shower? It's not the magical properties of your shampoo— it's because it's one of the few moments when you're not force-feeding your brain someone else's content and your conscious mind is doing something repetitive; it allows your subconscious to sing.

So here's my radical suggestion for you:

- Taking a walk? Let your thoughts be the podcast.

- Taking a bath? Make it a #ThoughtBath instead of a scrolling session.

- Taking a baby? Don't take babies.
(Seriously, return any babies you've “borrowed”.)

I've started deliberately scheduling blocks of nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It feels weird and uncomfortable at first, like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. But the results? Mind-blowing. Those empty spaces have produced more creative ideas than any "productive" time I could have scheduled.

To all my fellow creatives out there: try it. Embrace the void. Let your brain be bored. You might be surprised at what emerges when you stop filling every moment with noise. Trust me, your brain will thank you for the vacation from being everyone else's podcast player.

For the past 9 years, I’ve run the NO-vember challenge every year. Basically, I teach you how to say NO to one thing every day of November with tips and tools up the wazoo. You can sign up for free below: