Is being bored good for your creativity

Through the various lockdowns that we all had to go through I ended up teaching myself to crochet thanks to endless watching of Youtube tutorials. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one as we all learnt new skills out of frustration and boredom

I wonder, when was the last time you got properly bored? The reason I mention this is that in doing the repetitive crochet pattern I’m working on at the moment is very good time to let my brain switch off. I’m making a jumper and its fairly mindless work.

But the beauty of that time and mindless work is that it gives my brain time to wander, I find that ideas and thoughts come easily when I doing that repetitive work. In doing the mundane work of the same stitch over and over as the jumper grows,  my brain tends to find creative ways of thinking. This apparently is called ‘the day dreaming effect’ You can see the progress of the jumper here.

When it comes to running a business in the current age of social media consumption. I think there is a two fold battle, one is how much social media I consume which I feel is a battle that involves my creativity suffering and then there is always a pressure to feel that your coming up with new ideas, your designing new styles and your creativity is just oozing out of you.

So in a round about way my takeaway from this would be, if you’re struggling with feeling like you’re not coming up with enough creative content then go find the tasks you’ve been putting off. Probably the ones that make you feel bored even before you’ve started. Mine would be tidying my desk at home which as you can see from the photo below is an absolute tip. (don’t judge me on the half dead plant!)

I found this interesting article from an American middle school teacher which you can read here. He talks about how he discovered boredom to be a gift and cultivated in a way into his teaching. I think the Italians have an expression which sums it up well and that is what we need to cultivate…

 il dolce far niente”—the sweetness of doing nothing –

Winston has nailed the art of staring into space….

So in closing. Go take a cup of tea and sit in the garden and watch the clouds for a while. I’d be interested to know what comes next….

Grace x