By the end of the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, described boredom in his work "Pensées" this way: "Nothing is so unbearable to man as to be in complete rest, without passions, without business, without entertainment, without application. He then feels his nothingness, his abandonment, his insufficiency, his dependence, his powerlessness, his emptiness." As soon as we feel a hint of boredom, we dive into our phones, launching Netflix to occupy our minds again, scrolling through social media feeds to send “likes” here and there. The goal being at all costs to escape boredom, for boredom is scary. We must not waste our time.

Leisure phobia, a term coined by Rafael Santandreu, a Spanish psychologist, refers to the fear of free time.

It is not surprising that we see new diseases like leisure phobia, a term invented by Rafael Santandreu, a Spanish psychologist. It refers to the fear of having nothing to do. After a weekend, some people feel ashamed to respond with “nothing at all” to the question “What did you do this weekend?” Except that doing nothing is not really “doing nothing”.

Today, the world is filled with distractions; it is difficult to be bored.

As children, our parents often fear that we will be bored. And our parents push us as much as possible to go play outside, to draw, to make music, to do anything but something. How many young people are enrolled in several sports or creative activities, filling their schedules completely? Except that boredom is important for children's development. It is when we start to truly feel bored that we seek a way to not be bored. We exercise our creativity by paying attention to the environment around us. We allow ourselves to take the time to observe the world around us. We create new games, new stories, we draw, we paint, we write songs. We think for ourselves, we stimulate our imagination. We are not waiting for our parents to “find” something for us to do.

As adults, it’s the same story. When we are bored, we look around, and we get motivated to redo all our decorations, to go to Leroy Merlin to paint our wall a completely new color, to sort our books, then find a forgotten one that we want to reread, to write articles, etc.

Einstein himself recognized the advantages of boredom on creativity. After obtaining his diploma similar to the current baccalaureate, he wanted to have a free year just to “waste time.” He saw it as a means to think and let new ideas come. Proof that it worked! Steve Jobs is also another good example of the benefits of boredom. He enjoyed walking to free his mind a bit.

THE BENEFITS OF BOREDOM AT WORK

“Two British researchers, Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman, presented a group of subjects with two different tasks. First, the group had to perform a boring exercise that consisted of copying or reading phone numbers from a directory, and then various activities that required their creativity. It was observed that subjects who spent time copying or reading numbers from the directory performed better in the creative task than those who started directly with it. Reading phone numbers (leaving more room for daydreaming) seems to stimulate creative potential. According to the authors, the mind freed during an automatic activity would spontaneously re-examine situations encountered previously and look for new solutions. Thus, these "boring" activities would allow the emergence of new ideas that would not necessarily see the light of day if the mind were constantly occupied.”

In an age where we must always go ever faster, and produce ever more, we have less and less time to be bored. We exceed our hours to fit the most urgent requests into a schedule. However, we have just seen that one becomes more creative by being bored. So perhaps we should allow more time for reflection? More time for boredom, to observe around us and find inspiration. We need to put our brains on pause, to let them breathe.

Boredom is not a waste of time, as it is beneficial for the quality of work.

One of my colleagues always finds good ideas on his bike ride home. Because it is during this time that his mind starts to wander. When he doesn't have anyone to talk to, or any screen distractions. Another colleague told me that it is always during her vacations that she has a ton of project ideas. Because on vacation, that is when we are the most rested. Our attention is no longer as demanded. We can reflect on other subjects, something different from a workday. Don't you live alone, and do you know that when you get home, you'll have 1000 things to handle? So walk home!

It’s about putting your brain on pause. So turn off your notifications to avoid interruptions, and let yourself be overwhelmed by boredom. Your mind will be filled with ideas, thoughts, that you wouldn’t have had if you were doing a usual task.