Nature Valley is creating a YouTube stir with its film asking 3 generations what they did as kids to amuse themselves.
The older generations speak of “growing watermelons and plantains”. Younger adults talk of building forts and outdoor games. Kids today? Take a wild guess: Tablets and gaming.
Of course our take out is to endorse the need to #rediscovernature. Chuck our children outdoors (with a granola bar to sustain them). Condemn the addiction to technology of youth today.
My take out is slightly different. Although I can remember vividly playing outside of course and constructing tree houses and building ant farms I also remember how boring things were much of the time. Rainy Sunday afternoons with no video games to play or shops to go to stretch like very long boring things in my memory. How I would have loved to find things to do on a smart phone. Yet it is also true that this boredom was a useful thing. If it did nothing else it led me to plan avidly to escape it. It made me the planner perhaps that I am today.
Have we eliminated boredom from most areas of our lives now that we can entertain ourselves however we want to, whenever we want to? Have we robbed our children of boredom with a combo of afterschool activities and their own smartphones?
When were you last very bored?
Wired writer Clive Thompson suggests that boredom is one of our most productive states. Citing a recent academic survey where half the subjects were asked to do something boring for a bit (copying numbers from a phone book) and then tested for creative ideas versus a control (unbored) group. The result was that the bored cohort came up with more ideas and more creative ideas. He asks “What if boredom is a meaningful experience. One that propels us to states of deeper thoughtfulness or creativity?”
Rather than fill our time with social activities or urgent tasks we need to be very unproductive in order to be very productive. If your diary at work is packed with meetings or spread sheets then you have a problem. You have no oasis of calm in which to think about what you would do if you were not so busy. Use the Urgent/Important grid to classify your day. If there’s no time at all for “Important but not Urgent” then find some, or Urgent Urgent activity will take control.
We don’t have to deal with slow moments any more, either at work or at home (or in transit). There’s always a Buzzfeed quiz or an update on Piers Morgan’s social engagements.
Enforced boredom is a huge driver of productivity. To many this seems like a contradiction in terms. Surely if you haven’t got anything to do then you’re not doing enough. In fact the very opposite is true. If you are always busy you are never doing enough.
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Bored? Good. Use it.
The older generations speak of “growing watermelons and plantains”. Younger adults talk of building forts and outdoor games. Kids today? Take a wild guess: Tablets and gaming.
Of course our take out is to endorse the need to #rediscovernature. Chuck our children outdoors (with a granola bar to sustain them). Condemn the addiction to technology of youth today.
My take out is slightly different. Although I can remember vividly playing outside of course and constructing tree houses and building ant farms I also remember how boring things were much of the time. Rainy Sunday afternoons with no video games to play or shops to go to stretch like very long boring things in my memory. How I would have loved to find things to do on a smart phone. Yet it is also true that this boredom was a useful thing. If it did nothing else it led me to plan avidly to escape it. It made me the planner perhaps that I am today.
Have we eliminated boredom from most areas of our lives now that we can entertain ourselves however we want to, whenever we want to? Have we robbed our children of boredom with a combo of afterschool activities and their own smartphones?
When were you last very bored?
Wired writer Clive Thompson suggests that boredom is one of our most productive states. Citing a recent academic survey where half the subjects were asked to do something boring for a bit (copying numbers from a phone book) and then tested for creative ideas versus a control (unbored) group. The result was that the bored cohort came up with more ideas and more creative ideas. He asks “What if boredom is a meaningful experience. One that propels us to states of deeper thoughtfulness or creativity?”
Rather than fill our time with social activities or urgent tasks we need to be very unproductive in order to be very productive. If your diary at work is packed with meetings or spread sheets then you have a problem. You have no oasis of calm in which to think about what you would do if you were not so busy. Use the Urgent/Important grid to classify your day. If there’s no time at all for “Important but not Urgent” then find some, or Urgent Urgent activity will take control.
We don’t have to deal with slow moments any more, either at work or at home (or in transit). There’s always a Buzzfeed quiz or an update on Piers Morgan’s social engagements.
Enforced boredom is a huge driver of productivity. To many this seems like a contradiction in terms. Surely if you haven’t got anything to do then you’re not doing enough. In fact the very opposite is true. If you are always busy you are never doing enough.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2015 at 10:25 am and is filed under MediaComment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.